Keegan-Michael Key
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi there. I'm Def Leppard. That was the thing that Katherine Hahn wanted me to say. Did people say? No, I ended up listening to that episode. Yeah, after the fact. Def Leppard. Okay, there we go. Yeah, Def Leppard. Today, with a very musical name, Keegan-Michael Key.

Keegan-Michael Key. He is a genius. He is. What a blessing he is. An award-winning actor, comedian, producer, and writer. Key and Peele. Keanu. Wonka. Mad TV. Schmigadoon. And his new movie that's out right now, Transformers 1.

An origin story for the Transformers universe. We got to hear a lot about comedy in this episode, which was really fascinating. As you pointed out, could have been an expert. Yes. Turns out he is an encyclopedia of the history of comedy. It's incredible. And we get to hear a lot about Key and Peele, which is fun. Yes. Great episode. Please enjoy Keegan-Michael Key.

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Yes, I did stand up for you, even though I am sore. She's very sore. You're sore. Yeah. Oh, jeez. Tardiness. Oh, you're fine. Oh, you are tardy. Now I'm mad. You wouldn't have made a difference. I wasn't giving a shit. We were in here. What were we just talking about? We were just chit-chatting. We were talking about the business.

The business? Oh, we're talking about the business? Monica, why are you sore? Because I started with a trainer on Tuesday. Ah, that'll do it. Your first time with a trainer? Yes. And they're still learning you? That's right. So they're just going to push as hard as they can the first time? Getting a baseline. Gotta get a baseline. You gotta get a baseline. Wabi, will you turn Keegan down in mine and me up a tiny bit? There's a nice... Okay.

That's nice. That's very nice. Pronto, prego. Do you know any Italian words? I know echo. I know it is an Italian word. Okay. And I know prego. Grazie. And I know uomo means man. I don't know why. Which is woman in English. What?

Isn't that funny? I try to always see what all the... This is a weird thing to say. I just said always. Yeah, yeah. I always try to see what all of the similar words are in Latin languages. That's something I always do. That's always. You're always doing that. So it's womo, right? In Italian.

H-O-M-M-E. H-O-M-M-E. And then hombre. Yes. Bad hombre. And then we have man. It's a big departure. Isn't everything in our language? People go, you're so lucky to be an American. The luckiest thing about being American is that you learned this language first. This is the worst language ever.

How so? It has so many roots. It has Latin roots. It has German roots. It has Saxon roots. It has French roots. It never ceases to amaze me.

That a person can move from Guangzhou province and go, I'm going to open a restaurant in Nebraska. There's Chinese restaurants in Nebraska. How? Couldn't do it. No. Could not open a burger joint in Guangzhou province. Okay. Now I'm going to counter with a couple of things. First of all, I have my grievances about this language. Spelling it makes zero sense. It's so annoying. That's the big one. That's my main issue. Now, but I'm going to hit you with something that's interesting. Get me, Dax. Two things.

One, I've always been suspicious that Spanish was less efficient than English. Based on watching shows in Spanish, seeing the English subtitle, and thought, well, they talked for two minutes. Then we had this unique experience where they converted an episode of our show with AI into Spanish, where we're speaking Spanish. It's this full Spanish episode. Oh, really? Yes, it's incredible. That's amazing. But our hour and 45-minute long episode in Spanish was three hours and 20 minutes. Wow.

Are you kidding me? Yes, that's the factor. A straight transcription. Straight transcription. And then we were in India getting this demonstration about Microsoft's new AI thing. And they were explaining to us that it costs double as much to run AI in different languages

Because English is so efficient, it takes way less data. So it's easier to train the AI in this language. It's cheaper. It was shocking. What else is shocking is that you hate this language. You talk about it all the time in a very pejorative, negative way because of your dyslexia. Yet here you are because it's your team now. Now you're sticking up for your team. Hold on.

I have a different take on it. Okay. But you know me. I just got to go the opposite direction. Contrarian. So Keegan was like, this language sucks. I'm like, let me think of three things that are good about it. Let me be contrarian. I cannot argue the efficiency thing. Because you mentioned Spanish. Then I think about German. You know how they just add a word to another word to another word to another word. And they just make super long words. Yes. And then I don't know anything about German.

Nordic language, but it doesn't look easy. For me, you hear a couple of French lovers whispering to each other. That's the best. My God. That's the most mellifluous, beautiful thing. Two lovers arguing over the dishwasher, and I'm getting so horny and emotional. And then when I hear a couple Swedes going at it, I'm like, woo. I have no idea what they're saying, but they always sound like it's a... Ha, ha, ha.

It sounds like a little bit of coughing to me. A lot of consonants. A lot of consonants. Consonant heavy. But also breathy. They sound like they just finished a rigorous walk. Oh my God. We just cracked the most amazing thing. They hate small talk and it just occurred to me it's because it's too laborious. Oh, good point. Yes. It's not that they're fucking a

Above trivialities. Exactly, yeah. It's just, I don't want to move my mouth. I don't want my mandibles to be sore. My mastoid. My mastoid. We're cooking now. Mastoids. That's that Milford education right there. That's what that is. Ding, ding, ding. I didn't learn a goddamn thing in Milford. It might surprise you to learn. Really? Really?

No, I learned how to like suss out who I should run from and who I should fight. You see, I just slipped that in there. I just thought to myself, how soon do I get to the Michigan stuff? I'm glad you did it fast. Also, do you play spades by chance? I play spades, but I play more euchre than spades. Euchre's a quality game.

quality game. Do you know Monica this game? If you spend any time with him and Kristen, you've got to know this game. That's right. Where are you from? I'm from Georgia. Then they taught you because nobody in Georgia plays Euchre. Never heard of it until they taught me. Spades heavy country. I didn't grow up on spades, but we have a friend who loves spades and he taught us and now we're like

Spade's crazy. Spade's crazy. Anyways, in spades, the Joker high is the thing. So Milford for you was like, you were sitting on the Joker high. I get it. When am I going to play Milford? When in this conversation is our big cat going to come up? So I can just slip a panther situation in there.

which was a ruse, right? You want to hear something fucking insane? I actually have the inside scoop on this. Do you really? Which is going to blow your mind. And if I were you, I wouldn't trust me, but I'll tell you regardless. Okay. And we got to bring Monica up to speed. You're a couple years older than me, so you probably really were aware of its news coverage. Yes, I was watching it on the news. I'm from Detroit. I'm from the actual city. So Milford's a world of difference between...

My urban experience and his rural experience. Yes. And we had an inordinate amount of serial killers there. We were on the news for serial killers. And then we were on the news a bunch that there was a panther loose in Milford. The Milford panther. The Milford panther. People even made shirts. And it would pop up in the news occasionally, right? It was almost as if the newscaster said, and if we've forgotten the

The Milford Panther is still on the prowl. Okay. I'm Mort Cribb. Or another thing would happen in Milford that defied explanation. And the most logical thing was that there must be a panther. Yeah, yeah. Dog died of old age. Right. The fucking panther was. The panther ravaged him. Was this an escape?

panther from the zoo? Very good question. Do you have any insight on that, Dax? Because I don't understand. Why would there be not indigenous to that part of the country? Not that I know of. No, even North America. But the zoo was in Royal Oak. Too far away for a panther to make it to Milford. It would have stopped and eaten things long before. Way before it got to Milford. Yes. Okay. So this is going to blow your mind. I'm not going to give the people's names away because God knows what the liability is. Oh, sure. No, I got you. So the original reason it was believed that we had a panther is that a horse was killed.

and was killed by the neck and they saw the animal get away. It was a large black animal. So I developed a friendship with this kid who, by the way, went to St. Mary's. He was a rich kid, but he lived on the outskirts of my town in a very big house on a lot of property. And I came to know him in high school and we were drunk one time. They had this black Great Dane. Oh!

And he goes, our dog killed that horse. He had a smoking dog. The dog came home and was covered in blood. They had no fucking clue what happened. They thought it fought another dog. Any number of things could have happened. Yes. They were like, we got to go to the vet. It's totally fine. They're like, oh my God, it must have fought something. And then on the news promptly thereafter, that horse lived like in their neighborhood. Okay. It was their dog was the black.

any Michigander listening to this podcast right now is going to drop whatever they're holding. This is a big, I also want to mention the vantage point of where I'm sitting is thoroughly ironic because you are sitting in front of a

painting of a great day oh my god you're right what if i told five more stories every story involves a great day this dude's just obsessed with great day that's so funny did you see the dog with your own eyes oh yeah i was older at that point they don't live very long they don't because they're too big their hearts turn they say i know i never understood that when he rolls on his back at the great pyrenees and the saint bernards of our day their hearts turn

Yes. But back to horses, that's also what happens to horses. Their intestines turn. You heard that? I have heard that. Yeah, they're lying down. They pop up. It goes inside their body. Like a balloon. And it closes off the whatever room they get. Oh, maybe that was happening to the horse. Maybe he put the horse out of his misery. He's like, I see you. This happens to me too. Wow.

Wow. This is a true crime. It is true crime. I can't believe you just revealed that to me. I know. I've never said it in public. Did you tell friends? Of course. Weekly knows it was their dog. Oh, sure. My best friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I've never said it in public. Oh, man. Okay, so let's start at the very beginning. You were born in Southfield. I was born in Southfield. Now, Monica, again, a lot of context in this podcast today. Suburb of Detroit. I don't know who did my Wikipedia page. Guarantee they're from Southfield. What?

Because if I had had anything to do with my Wikipedia page, I would just have said Detroit native. There's some pride to be had. Yeah. It's not that Southfield's a bad place. It's just that I grew up in the city. And very often you come across people who say, I'm from Detroit. And I'll go, but where are you from? Exactly. But I'm from Detroit. And Sam is as well. I just interviewed Sam Richardson. Sam is from the city. Boston, I'm sure it's the same. I'm from Atlanta. But are you from Atlanta? I know. No. Yeah. Yeah. You're not. Yeah. Nope. And I'm guilty of this.

Although I did live downtown. No, you lived in the city. Yeah, yeah. And Sam lived in the city. And Tim Robinson, Clarkston? That makes a lot of sense. Because that's hillbilly paradise. God, he's going to listen to this and go, you know I'm up from fucking Clarkston. Well, he should come on and tell us himself. Exactly. Exactly. Well done. Gauntlet thrown. But born in Southfield, raised in the city. And when I was a little boy, I lived behind U of D, the University of Detroit. Small liberal arts college. North of the Cass Corridor, off of Wyoming. But for context, we must say-

Kaz Corridor was the area of Detroit that always over-indexed out of any borough anywhere in the country for murders. So for a decade, when Detroit was the murder capital of the globe, the whole world, so people would say, in 1983, you were safer walking down the streets of Beirut, Lebanon. Wow. And they always said Beirut.

Remember, it was the 80s. It's Beirut. That's the most dangerous place. And Casse Corduroy was the epicenter. So the most concentrated place where those kind of crimes took place was the Casse Corduroy. Now, the Casse Corduroy is filled with coffee shops and antique shops. Shinola Watches is there. Oh, my God. Do you know Willis Street? 404 Willis. I know Willis. Okay, so I used to go to punk shows all the time at 404 Willis at the nadir of that.

Like when every couple hours, people just dropping like flies in front of the club. So I used to go to 404 Willis all the time and I drove by there recently and I was like, that cannot be 404 Willis. Right, right. Or the old Miami. I would take my children here. It's completely turned around. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it's amazing. Why do Detroiters, I'm asking both of you,

I don't know. He's the only real Detroiter, but go ahead. Okay, thank you for saying that. And I don't know if this is true, but I'm gaining this information. Why do you guys love talking about the names of streets and the names of geographical things so much? For me personally, because I'm a bit of a history nut.

Detroit's old city was founded in 1701. Fort Mishlamackinac was a little fort there. And I like talking about the streets because a good deal of the hub of Detroit downtown, it's not a grid. It's like Boston. It's an old city that has streets that kind of go through streets and go in circles and streets where things just stop.

stop because they put a building here where there used to be a cable car or a streetcar track. It's a city built on a phenomenon or an industry, and then a new industry slapped up on top of that, and another one slapped up on top of that. And also because we identify, I think everybody does this, but you identify neighborhoods by certain streets. So when he says Willis, I know right where he's talking about. But it's so funny to me because if we have Atlanta people on or suburbs up, I'm never saying...

Rogers Bridge and Peachtree Industrial. But Dax does do this all the time with people from Michigan. And it's interesting. And I'm going to add into it, and I don't think it's terribly unique in this way, but the little pockets were quite distinct. They were distinct. They were distinct.

So it's like if I say Hamtramck, that doesn't mean anything to the rest of Detroit. It's all white Polish people in a city that's 92% black. That needs to be separated out from what we're talking about. Not to mention the fact that Hamtramck is an actual enclave and you don't see enclaves anymore. I mean, enclave in the traditional sense that it is a municipality that

that is surrounded on four sides by another municipality. Antrimic has its own fire department, its own police department, its own mayor, its own chamber of commerce. But it's kind of like Beverly Hills. It's like Beverly Hills. It's surrounded by Detroit. And you're right. And for it to be that kind of community, completely white. Now there's lots of people from the Balkans there and there's lots of people from East Africa there. Oh, no kidding. Yes. Okay, so it's changed. When I was a kid, it was straight up Polish. We called it Pole Town. Wow.

Yeah. You couldn't even be another version of white and be safe. You had to be Polish. You had to be Polish. Yeah, yeah. The fascination with the streets, they're like boroughs, like New York, where there are very distinct pockets and distinct areas. So Boston Edison, where Sam grew up, there are beautiful old houses that were built by the auto barons. The most elaborate mansions of the day. Across the country. And then they're in this totally burnt out, destroyed, at least in the 90s when I was living there. So it's very unique buildings.

To see these mansions on these streets in the middle of all this other stuff. Yeah, in the midst of all this kind of blight. And then all of a sudden you turn down a street off of Woodward Avenue in the Boston Edison area and you're going, what are these? It's like a movie. You turn a corner and you're in Labyrinth. And then additionally, you got to add. So the people that went down to Detroit in the 90s, they went to Greektown. They went to Joe Louis Arena. They went to Lafayette, Coney Island. And that's it.

And they go to the Fox Theater and then you got out as fast as you could. Yeah, and you went in a caravan. Yeah, in a caravan, right. And I used to work downtown at the Second City, the building across from the Fox. It was interesting at Second City because we had a different experience. A lot of Detroiters ended up going to Chicago to work at the Second City. It was not a parallel move. It was definitely a promotion. Because if you got to go to Chicago, you knew that at some point in time,

or some of his producers were going to come and scout. So when we were in Detroit, the advantage we had was because there was no tourist base, we'd have to write three or four shows a year because the same people came to see the shows. Oh.

Whereas in Chicago, you're always going to have the group spot out or a group that's coming from India. This is what you do in Chicago. You know, if you had business people coming from other countries, let's go to the comedy show at the Second City. This is where John Belushi used to work and everybody would do that. So they only did...

one to two shows a year. - Yeah. - Ah. - We got the experience of writing a show all the time and coming up with new material. It was a really great training ground by the necessity of the fact that we had a lack of a tourist department. - Of course I envied it when I was in the Sunday Company, but I have a tremendous amount of gratitude now that like we did a new show every Sunday and I was like, oh, the main company gets to do their show for like three months and I was jealous of it. But now in retrospect, I'm like, no, I wrote hundreds of sketches in a year. - Yeah, I think that's great. - Okay, we got derailed. So you're in the murder capital.

So 8 Mile and Woodward is where I grew up. Everybody's heard of 8 Mile. That's right. So I grew up a block south of 8 Mile. So Ferndale was the first north suburb. Yeah, you're right by Softball City and that weird motorcycle gang clubhouse. The Renegades? It's either the Vandals or the Renegades. And Monica, they had a full motorcycle mounted to the outside of their clubhouse. Very memorable. I grew up across from the Michigan State Fairgrounds.

At home at night in bed, I could hear the concerts. So it would be Bob Seger. Ted Nugent. Yeah, Ted Nugent. Uncle Teddy. Way to go, Teddy, go! I remember one year at the State Fairgrounds, Hulk Hogan.

And Don the Rock Morocco. Oh, baby. And the Iron Sheik Dax. Oh, my God. And I stood in front of the gate for five hours with my little neighbor. His mom said, y'all gonna go to the wrestling, to the wrestling, right? Take Damon. And I'm like,

okay, Mrs. Sharp, but I think that it's going to be in hours in the sun. He, all right, y'all need to come back. It's the water comes against the water. I was like, okay, but you couldn't come back because you'd lose your spot. And we stood there for five hours and we paid three 50 or $5 or whatever it was and saw Don the rock Morocco and Hulk Hogan. That's pre WrestleMania silver dome. Yes. This would have been 82. And I think West Romania was 85. I just see your eyes. Don the rock Morocco.

Morocco. Holy fuck. But the Iron Sheik, too. I don't know if you can have that character anymore. I don't think you can. I'm not sure. Yeah. You can't have the Iron Sheik. The great thing about those 80s stereotypes is they were so thin. The lack of awareness of even what they were parodying. They didn't even know what they were parodying. And so I grew up right there. I grew up on a street called Woodstock Drive. It's the first block south of 8 Mile Road. And there was a

field. Very strange that this would be in this town, but there was a field. There were no homes on it at the end of our block. So we'd play football and we'd play soccer and we'd play baseball in the field. You had a good conscientious neighbor who'd take his lawnmower. He lived three blocks away and he'd walk it down and mow the field. I still think this. When I go home, my friend Aaron now lives in Beverly Hills. Yeah, by Pleasant Ridge. And

And I drive through his really expansive subdivision and the meticulous nature of how people keep their yards. And 70% of the people are out there actively doing it because it requires like hours a day to get it as good. I kind of love that. I loved doing that when I was a kid, like with the hedge clippers, just get that one little edge where you couldn't get that.

edge. And if there was a neighbor on your street that didn't mow their lawn, the whole neighborhood hated their guts. Absolutely. My mom, you want to look like the right-ins? That was like, you couldn't look like the right-ins. Oh no, let me get out there right now. Yeah, I'm on it. Give me the edger. Give me the weed whacker. Not the right-ins. Are you kidding me?

So did you live in that house your whole childhood? Yeah. We lived off the 10. Oh my God. I can't believe I just said the 10. The Lodge. The Lodge. I just said the 10 because of somebody in my life who lived out here for a long time and then moved to Detroit and said it by the numbers as opposed to the names. There's different types of Detroiters. Okay. Let's hear it. There's two different things. Older people would say, that's the Fisher Freeway. But Dax and I would say that's 94. But then the interesting thing is there are other people in Detroit who will say, so I took...

The 94. And then there's a Ruther, which is the 96. But you would always say I'm taking 96. But nobody took the Fisher, which is the 75. Everybody takes 75. Nobody ever called it the Fisher Freeway. No, no, no. No one ever called it the Fisher Freeway. You called it 75. So we also do that with the names of our road with, what is it in Georgia? It's the perimeter. But we have a 75 and an 85.

You have the same 75. And you don't say the, though, correct? I don't. That's a California thing. It's a California thing. The 10, the 101. What's the perimeter? 275. 275. I just want to air this grievance. Yes. You're coming south and you know you want to avoid Atlanta because it's going to be rush hour. You're driving to Florida from Michigan. Do I go east or west on this loop? Yeah, it's a big old circle. It's a big crapshoot. We call it Spaghetti Junction.

Oh, you do? Spaghetti Junction. Oh, that's a good name. That's a clever name. Does anyone, do Californians move there and call it The Spaghetti Junction? Well done. Okay, so you lived there the whole time. What's interesting is you and Kristen went to the same school. Same high school, and we had the same education.

I'm saying drama teacher just so everybody understands it. We didn't have a drama department. We had the choir and then we had the elite choir, which were called the Goliards. Oh. I don't know if Kristen was in Goliards. I've never heard Goliards, shockingly. And what the fuck is a Goliard? Exactly.

Because our high school mascot were the Knights, I think a Goliard must be like the English version of a Troubadour. I'm totally pulling this out of my ass. I like it. I have no idea if it's true, but I'm going with that because we were called the Knights. It sounds like a pejorative for a bad goalie. We'll fact check it. We have an actual fact check. Yeah, at the end of the episode. Like debates. So I went to this high school. Kristen and I both had a teacher. Her name was Mary Rashid. And she...

was really instrumental in getting me into the program. My parents divorced. We had a family therapist and the family therapist said, "I think this young man should go into the arts." I think that would be a good way for him to express himself. When the therapist found out what high school I was going to, he said, "The woman who runs the choir program and the music program at that high school is a friend of mine. I will let her know that he's coming." And I'm a freshman, little string bean of a kid with a big

bushy hair, if you can believe it, walking down the hall. And she came out of her room and saw my face, I guess from his description of me. And she just grabbed my arm and she said, you're Keegan-Michael Key, right? We're getting you involved. And that first year, the musical was called Just for Openers. And the whole program was simply the opening number from musicals, from famous musicals. Oh, that's fun. That was the show. I ran the following spot. And then she left our high school my junior year.

So she left my high school and went to Groves in Birmingham to go teach there. She chased the money. She chased the money. Oh, it's so fancy. It's nice. Groves is fancy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I don't want to cast aspersions on Groves, but she came back to try. By the way, if you can't shit on the rich kid school, what the fuck can we shit on? Yeah, I'm punching up. Right, I'm punching up. Fuck Cranbrook. My sister went there. Fuck all those bitches. Your sister go to Cranbrook? Yeah, she did, yeah. I love how patient you are being. Right?

Because this podcast has been so insular so far. And you're showing like genuine interest. I am. You're going to see a look come over her face when we mention Cedar Point. I was hoping. You'll never. I was hoping maybe we could skip it. Can I just tell you? It'll be the second time I talk about Cedar Point today. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh.

Oh, my God. You know what's incredible, Monica? You're still not intrigued. No, I am getting further and further away. Away from intrigued. Yes. The door is closing on Cedar Point. Yeah, anyone that's in a three-state area that we have as a guest, there's at least 25 minutes on it. And Sam was here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're going to skip over from Monica's view. We'll skip over Cedar Point. But we'll sidebar. I'm going to say one thing about Cedar Point. Just one single thing. Okay, you have to. You understand that Cedar Point is actually, and you can fact check it,

It's like the second best amusement park on earth. Which one's better? There's some amusement park apparently that's in Japan. Okay. Which makes sense. Sure. But Cedar Point is top five in the world. Anyway, I'm done. Do you know it's been purchased by Six Flags? Cedar Point's been purchased by Six Flags? Isn't that a bummer? Oh, I hate every second of that. Yes. Some people, me, would say that...

Six flags must, in fact, be the second best. I don't even want to talk. Let's move on. Well, that rained on my parade. That's a good weapon, Monica. Weaponize that fact. You want to shut people down on the Cedar Point stuff. You and I should do like a 20-part history channel. Oh, my God. Every year of Cedar Point's existence, welcome to Sandusky, Ohio, where dreams come true.

Oh, fuck. I am dying to know who started it. How do you pick Sandusky? I guess Lake Erie, but there's other lakes that are more picturesque. And maybe closer to Cleveland. That would be three episodes. I would be fascinated. Monica could just produce it. She doesn't have to be there. I'm here in spirit. And your title card as a producer would be like a middle finger or something. You'd have to express your absolute hatred for this project you produced.

Exactly. Okay, so back to Shrine. She went to Groves. And then Mary came back to Shrine. And then Kristen had her as a teacher. So Keegan, without this intervention with the therapist and then her, did you have any aspirations? I think I did and didn't know it. And let me see if I can articulate that. Because television was the window of the world to me. I love to read, but I loved television. And I used to watch Marlon Perkins' Wild Kingdom with my dad when I was a little kid. Sponsored by the Mutual of Omaha.

Remember that? Yes. And Marlon Perkins, Wild Kingdom. Mutual of Omaha. They bought the whole thing. And it was mutual. And so...

I remember I used to love watching the guys in the helicopters with the big kind of plexiglass bubble. One guy would lean out of the side and dart a polar bear. Yeah. And then they'd tag them so they could keep track of them. And I thought, God, that would be a great job. And I remember watching specials about people in Greenpeace going between whaling boats and the whales. And I loved animals. So I thought I was going to be a vet. When we'd go to sessions like for family therapy, what would happen was I would act out the trailers to movies. Oh.

that I wanted to see. And I think that's what he keyed in on. Pun intended. I'm like, Empire Strikes Back. I do the, then the, and then he flew around and the machine went around the legs and then fell down and he blew up. He would just sit there and listen very intently to my stories, but I would act them out. So this was eighth grade. Were you already watching Sariant Live and doing the bits

Like remember Martin Short when we were a kid and he had the triangle and the hair and I would put my hair up like his. Ed Grimley? Yes, like Ed Grimley. Yes, 84 is when I actually started watching it at night because my dad loved Eddie Murphy. He loved Eddie Murphy because he loved Stevie Wonder. It's funny, what we're talking about right now

is in me and my wife Elle's book. Did a history of sketch comedy. Yeah, the history of sketch comedy. So a lot of the book, what Elle did is she framed it out that the thread that you hang everything on in the book is kind of my story. And then the stories of the history. And the Greeks did this and the Romans did that and medieval people did this because she's brilliant. So we just linked it all together. But my dad loved Stevie Wonder and because Eddie Murphy did a Stevie Wonder impression-

Oh, wow. He wanted to go see him in concert. He just thought he was the greatest. And he'd let us stay up and watch SNL. Those years, 84 to 86, right when Julia Louis-Dreyfus was still there and Gary Kroger and Piscopo and Brad Hall and those guys, moving into that last Dick Ebersole year, which was...

Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest. Wow. I told Christopher Guest, would you like to be on the show? And he said, if I come on the show and I'm in the capacity of one of the head writers of the show, you've got to let me do what I want and pick who I want. And then Chris got to do Weekend Update. Because there's some weird story too about Billy Crystal too, right? He didn't want to do it. He loved hosting it. He had hosted it a few times.

And then he came on to do it. And at that time on the show, what's interesting is they would rotate the news hosts. And Billy would host the news as Fernando Lamas. I didn't know that Fernando Lamas, when I was younger, or even three months ago, was a real person. I'm learning that now. Not only was he a real person, he's Lorenzo Lamas' father.

You know Lorenzo Lamas? I don't. He was a big sex symbol. Sex symbol action star in the 80s. Oh. Maybe he had a show where he rode a motorcycle. Renegade? Yeah, Renegade. Oh, Renegade motorcycle. Renegade, yeah. Eight Mile. Renegade MC. Eight Mile. Bingo. Brought it back around. Holy fuck. Ding, ding, ding. We were at Shrine. Ha!

So you were watching Saturday Night Live and you were intrigued. Did you know you could already do voices and impersonations? Yes, I could do that and I could make my friends laugh and they would make me. We were all just doing Eddie Murphy. Yes, it's all about memorizing what you could from Saturday Night Live then going to school the next day and whoever could repeat the most of the sketch was a king. Was the king. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

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I also had a best of SNL cassette and I would listen and memorize. There was this song that the girls sang and

Chevy had hurt himself or he wasn't on the show. Chevy, Chevy, whenever you fall down, each Saturday night on my TV. Oh, my Chevy, every time you take that fall, I wish that you were falling, falling for me. Lorraine Groundling. You are a historian. This is blowing my mind. This is incredible. This is a masterclass. They sang that song. That's on the cassette. It's good because it's a bunch of sketches written.

where the writing was very strong. You didn't need the visual. But then there were other sketches where you could have used the visual and still put them on the cassette. It was all first three, four seasons. Did they put a Mr. Bill commercial on it? Not on that cassette. One of the physical bits that they put on anyway was Belushi talking about

March goes out like a lion and April comes in like a lamb. And then he did this whole bit about why not March going out like a gazelle and in like an aardvark until he gets so frustrated that you hear him go, and he falls over. You hear him, but you can't see it. And then I couldn't wait to see it on a VHS best of tape later in my life. The blow was not there. There was no punchline or button for it. It was weird that they would

You lived with the setup for years. For years and years and never got to see it because I was too young when it actually aired. Okay, so once you start with her at Shrine, clearly you go major in theater at Detroit Mercy. So when do we go like, oh no, we're all in it? So the flip happened at Shrine. You're a freak, right? And then you find your tribe. I think that happens to every theater person. Are you a theater person, Monica? I majored in theater in college. Okay, you know how this is. Everybody finds their tribe. Double major marketing as well. Well, PR, but...

- Oh, PR. I always say marketing. - Marketing, marketing, PR. - I just wanna make that clear. - That's a little close. Two different things. - Only Monica. - I asked you. - No one in the real world's like, "Thank God you straightened that out." - So I decided probably when I was a sophomore, they did "Jesus and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," and I played one of the brothers. I played Dan.

And I played the baker. And two guys that are in prison and they tell Joseph their dream and he interprets their dreams. And I sing that song. And I found all these people who I thought were so loving and warm and attentive and saw things the way I saw things. Then I realized math, not my favorite subject. It requires a lot of it.

to be a veterinarian. - Oh, sure. - Yeah, yeah. - Sure. - And so that started softening me a little bit. And then when I was a junior, I was cast as Jesus in "Godspell." I remember doing it the opening night and the next night, and I went, "Oh, no, no, no, no. That's for the birds.

I'm doing this. Whatever this. Fuck animals. Fuck that. Fuck it. Fuck animal medicine. I'm doing this. They'll be fine. There's a bunch of other animal medicine people that can handle that. This is it for me. I'm Jesus. Yeah. But I missed the point. I'm going to be a savior. I'm going to be a Messiah. I want to be the second coming. That was when the click happened. Okay.

And I'm guessing not comedy at first because you're just doing what you did and it works and you're like, oh yeah, right, theater. I think like everybody did. Unless you live in Chicago, you don't know there's comedy school. Also, there wasn't a second city yet in Detroit. No, 93. I was scared to death of doing stand-up. I didn't want to be a stand-up even though I loved, same thing with you, right? Well, I was like, I have to be a stand-up and I'm too afraid to do it. Me too. What were the other,

avenue B to get into comedy. You just go to theater school. I could have gone to like Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle. I drove by it a million times. I parked in front of it. I stared at it. I'm like, am I going to walk in there? Me too. I was too scared. And there was another club in Wyandotte or Livonia and I could have gone there. Are they clown schools?

No, they would teach you stand-up. It's where touring... By the way, I didn't even know they would teach you. I probably would have entered a class, but I was like, I'm going to do an open mic night, but I couldn't do it. But that's where the touring comedians that would come to Detroit. So if you were going to go to a top shelf comedy club, you'd go to Mark Rithman's. Okay. So anyway, I didn't know what to do or how to go about that. But I did love... My aunts were very colorful women and kind of roughnecks. They babysit me or watched me when I was like 12 or 13. They're like, what movie do you want to watch? And I'm like, I want to watch Taxi Driver. Oh my God.

And so they'd let me watch Tax Driver and then Bob De Niro was my hero. So I was like, I like that too. I'll be Jesus. I'll be Robert De Niro. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This guy, Marlon Brando. Yeah. This other guy. Or Eddie Murphy. Or Eddie Murphy. Yeah. So you just went to college and I said, I'm going to major. And I remember being in like a seminar class in the beginning of the year. And a lot of people did not know what their major was going to

They're like, I just know I got the money. And my parents were like, you got to go to college. I was one of the few people I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Where did Kristen go to college? NYU. And she knew since six. She was putting herself on VHS tapes, redoing the Lee Press and Nails commercials. Really? Oh, yeah. She has tapes of her. She can say it so fast. We've had her do it on here.

She can do the whole Lee Press on Nail commercial, like, as fast as can humanly be done. She was doing that by herself. She was also in singing lessons when she was little. Trained operatically. So she just knew she was going to be a performer. I performed, and my mom even encouraged me, but that's not a job. Yeah, exactly. My parents were social workers. There's no connection to it. And so I went to school, and...

And I had a very unique experience there because unlike Wayne State, so Wayne State was our city university in the aforementioned Cass Quarter. The University of Detroit Mercy was a small, private, liberal arts, Catholic Jesuit school. I had gone to a Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, and a Catholic college.

college. And played Jesus along the way. You got a big dose of it. I didn't think anything was different until I met people from Wayne State. You go to college, Monica, you said, okay, I'm going to go into performance or I'll study performance. And then other kids did technical stuff and other kids got into stage management. We didn't have any of that at U of D. We ran...

the program so we went to classes but then i was a theatrical lighting electrician i hung the lights hung the wires focused the lights for the technical director did a little bit of construction i was horrible at that so that's why i stuck with the lights and then if you auditioned and happened to be cast it was great the best thing about the university of detroit was just called the theater company was that we often auditioned grown-ups and people that were right for a role at wayne state

You're 19 and you're going to play the 78-year-old grandpa. But at U of D, we hired a 78-year-old grandpa because it was a very small theater town. The theater company was treated as a regular theater and it happened to be connected to the University of Detroit. So if you came to see a play, you needed to see like a high quality theater.

So adults needed to play adults. That makes competition hard. Very, very hard. And so you got used to how this business works. There's another interesting ding, ding, ding really quick. It's just the second enormous venue I was at nonstop was the Grounds. Grounds Coffeehouse. That was the punk mecca in the 90s was the Grounds. Was it really? Yeah, at U of D, we would go to shows every weekend. When Grounds opened in 91 or 92, so I started school in 89. I graduated in 93. Yeah.

I performed at grounds. I was in a rock cover band. You were there in 93 and that's when I was going on stuff. We absolutely have to have been there at the same time when those punk bands would come and perform in the venue. Almost every weekend. That's like triple dig. It is. That's amazing. Yeah. And this is why I wish there's just like video of everything ever and you could go back and you could find it. Did you see there was a video that just surfaced of

Justin Bieber meeting Stephen Baldwin. The actor? Yes. He was just becoming Justin Bieber, so he's young. And Stephen's like, hey, nice to meet you. This is my daughter. And it's his current wife. It's his wife. It's literally his wife. Yes. And there's video of it. Of him introducing his daughter. When they're like eight. Wait a minute. His wife is Stephen Baldwin's daughter? Hailey Bieber is Stephen Baldwin's daughter.

- Wow. - And you see her as a little girl that's like, "Hey." - And they don't give a fuck. - They're not gay. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now they're married. - Yes, isn't that cool? - I agree with you, Monica, that I wish that we had more tapes. When you see Timothée Chalamet rapping at LaGuardia, it's the greatest thing that ever happened because it shows you the essence of who he is still now to this day.

Could you imagine you and I were banging heads? Yes, yes, yes. It is at U of D that I started improvising. I started improvising at Grounds. There was a guy who was a part of the touring company for Second City. He was an understudy to the touring company. I didn't know what any of this meant. I remember his name was Ed. He and I were in the same fraternity. But before that, he wanted to put together an improv program.

group, and he did a couple of improv shows, and people were really impressed with him. He was very good. Nobody knew of improv back then. There was no whose line is it anyway. They didn't even know what it was. He didn't get into the touring company, so he came back home to Detroit, and he went to school, and he started this improv troupe, and we perform at grounds. Short form stuff, games. That was where the taste came from, and it's also...

at the same time that In Living Color came out. Oh. So we had that influence and how were we writing? So you had SNL, but this new thing. I loved In Living Color. Oh God, In Living Color. Jordan Peele always says that the best thing about In Living Color was how mischievous it was. I think it's a great way of describing it is mischievous because it's like a lot of winking at like, we're being really naughty. Yeah, they were nasty and they weren't supposed to be there.

And all of it was great. 100%. And the Fly Girls. What? Yeah, like, what is this? And they had enough elegance. Again, it was punk rock adjacent. It was punk rock adjacent. Yeah, it was like, oh, this is not SNL. And SNL's already punk rock. It's an accomplishment to out-punk rock. To out-punk rock SNL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You thought you might see something that they would have regretted airing. There was a danger to it. I heard Todd Phillips in an interview say at one point that he thinks all great comedy is...

The underbelly is danger. And for me, he's my favorite comedy director, and it's very apparent in his stuff. Well, Key and Peele is 100% that. I think what made us dangerous was its dark underbelly. And Living Color had something very much in common with Mad TV. It's nasty comedy.

in that it's a little catty. Well, Mad TV was a little bit more tabloidy. We wanted to roast famous people a lot, whereas In Living Color would say, here's something nobody's talking about and we're going to just go right into it. Yeah. When you're watching, you're like, there might be blowback from this, which is a fun feeling. Yes, they're going to get in trouble for that sketch. Did you feel that we did that on Can't Peel the Word? In the best way. It was calling out truths that needed to be told in the absolute funniest way possible. I would say you guys are

opposite of in living color because i think in living color was in your face and it was dangerous on the surface but then it was pretty traditional at the core of it and i think your shit was like really happy and nice and approachable and friendly and then the subtext was like some real shit yeah yeah yeah that's what you're saying yeah that's what i'm saying completely different package like a reverse it's like oh these guys are friendly and nice and i trust them wait what are they actually pointing out oh yeah that's some real shit but they weren't like

SNL sketches, which are, you're just there to laugh. You guys were saying something important as well. It's interesting that it ended up being that way because everybody's philosophy informed everybody else. So we informed the writers and the writers informed us and Jordan informed me and I informed him. I know for a fact that Jordan's big deal was

It's got to be funny first. We've got to get the architecture right. Yes. Then we can slap something social on it. If President Obama is hamstrung because he can't get angry or he's an angry black man and he can't say nothing or he's an ineffectual black man, how do we help him? So we invented Luther. Right. But it's dangerous because you're saying, hey, fucking white people, this is what he's thinking.

- Exactly. - Yes. - It also takes you a second. First, it's hilarious. And then you're like, "Oh." - Wait a minute. Also because Jordan is so masterful and so brilliant, that concept, which came from SNL in the early days when Chevy Chase used to do Weekend Update, they would do these little segments where we'd say, "And now our next segment is sponsored by the Society for the Deaf. Our top story tonight, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead." And there'd be a little box, and in the box is Garrett Morris. And he'd go,

Our top stories at night. Oh, my God. Generalissimo. Now, he's doing it for a practical reason. But Jordan's idea was, what if you were screaming behind me? What if you were yelling out my frustration and anger? And it's such a goddamn clever idea that even in the midst of the indictment of the double standard of how you have to act as a black person, white conservative people

We'll go, God damn it. That's clever. Right. I gotta give it to him. Cause I've seen that guy. He don't ever yell. I bet he is pissed off. I bet he is pissed off. Right then. Right then. Also, we had to write scenes in a very thematic evergreen way. Even when you air this and publish this, what I'm about to say will be on the podcast, but won't make any difference in a year. So like if we wrote a sketch about Tyreek Hill being arrested in Miami and

Okay, that works if SNL's on right now. Today, we again tried to make Lemonades out of lemon, which is, okay, we have a 13-week writing process. We can't write any topical stuff. We've got to write evergreen stuff. The hope is our work will stand the test of time and that hopefully that we're making a comment on something interesting

That is obsolete. My hope would be that our grandchildren will go, I don't get it. Wouldn't that be awesome? If our grandchildren said, I don't get the sketch. That's a weird goal to have as an artist. Wouldn't that be amazing if it made no sense in 10 years? It's like that hugely popular riddle about the son going to the hospital and the doctor performs surgery and it's the mom. It's the mom. And that's a huge shock that a mom could possibly be a doctor. We gave our kids that riddle and they're like,

this isn't a riddle. It's the mom. I was like, oh, that's cool. When I was a kid, that was impossible. It was impossible, especially for... It broke my brain. You're just like, wait, the mom's the doctor? What country are they in? What year is this? 3041? Ha ha ha!

This is a shitty riddle because it's fucking impossible. You can't be the mom. Exactly. So that's what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. In an ideal world, our sketches would be obsolete. Some things do get sorted to a degree where you're like, well, this doesn't have an engine really anymore. Thank God. Thank God. Yeah. And also just looking at our consumerism.

When you see gay men in commercials or interracial couples in commercials, it's just a thing that we do now. Yeah. You would never think anything. So Second City opens in Detroit in 93. How quickly are you taking classes there? I left in 93 and went to graduate school at Penn State. And then when I came back home to Detroit, I started a theater in Hamtramck called The Planet Ant.

Sam hung out in Hamtramck exclusively. Sam spent all of his time there. I was the coach for Tim Robinson's sketch group. Oh, you were? I was wondering if there was going to be overlap. Yes, he had a sketch group. They were called Your Fat Friend, which you can't name. Also not a name that could be a name of a group now. And I saw Sam in a show. It was a Comedia dell'arte show at the Planet M. I don't know what Comedia is. We had Comedia at University of Georgia, but I didn't do it. I was too scared. Comedia dell'arte is a mask show.

art form that started in the 16th century in Italy. There were different scripts and different scenarios that were set up, but all the characters are the same. Carlo Godoni was the most famous commedia playwright. There was a bunch of different commedia playwrights, and they'd say, okay, this story is about the young couple that's getting together, but they're not supposed to get together, and the one father hates him, but he's having an affair with her. But every single play has the same characters. When you got up on Saturday mornings and turned on ABC, you'd watch a bunch of cartoons, but

But Bugs Bunny is in all of them. And Porky Pig's in all of them. And Yosemite Sam is occasionally in them. All of those characters on those cartoons that we watched when we were kids are based on Comedia characters. Oh, wow. Axel Foley, Eddie Murphy's character, is based on a Comedia character called Arlecchino. So is Bugs Bunny. Any street smart, quick questions.

witted scamp, Charlie Chaplin. The Tramp is an Arlecchino character. What is your theory or belief? Are people independently recreating that or are they aware of that? I think most people are not aware of that. You just inherit that archetype. They're archetypes. They're archetypes. They just started there. That's right. Somebody figured out how to codify the archetypes in the 1500s. People intrinsically know them and go, I'm going to play the parasite. I'm going to play the sassy man. Florence from the Jeffersons is a Comedia character named Combalina.

Gotcha. It's crazy. It's so cool. So cool and fascinating. So I saw a Comedia show with Sam in it. That's the first time I ever met him. And then he and Tim used improv and they wrote shows that they performed at the Planet End. And they worked and they did all that until they got their own show called The Detroiters that was on Comedy Central. So I started that theater with about eight friends. It used to be a coffee house. By the way, it is the coffee house...

were Meg and Jack White, Matt. No. What? Yes, yes. Oh, my Lord. That's where they met. They met at the Planet Ent coffee house. Oh, my gosh. So we gutted the coffee house and turned it into a black box and...

and started doing plays. And then I auditioned for Second City Detroit and I got in. I didn't have to take classes. So it wasn't as organized as it was at the Groundlings or the Second City or UCB. How great. You're just doing shows. I'm just doing shows. And then they said, do you want to teach? And then I started teaching. I was just fully immersed. Every day I'm reading Impro by Keith Johnstone. I'm reading Viola Spolin. I'm going to work. I'm teaching. It was a really fervent, fun, fulfilling

fulfilling, educational time. Has it ever gotten more fun? It's never gotten more fun. No. Isn't it crazy? Cause you're there aiming for here. I know. And then you get here and you go, oh, that was it. It's like when you talk to athletes and you go, but how do you stay? Forget every athlete is 23. Good for them. It's when you're 33 and God forbid you're successful. How do you keep

the passion going. Some of the most fulfilling work I ever did in my life was at that time. When I went to Chicago... How long were you in Detroit before you went to Chicago? I was there for three years and 11 months to the day. Oh, wow. Okay. From 1997 to 2001. I left in July of 2001, moved to Chicago. They put me into the new show. I was replacing a guy who was leaving to move out here. I went into that show. We started our rehearsal process for the next show.

We were probably three weeks out from previews. I woke up in the morning on a Tuesday, just like everybody else in this country, and heard that two planes had flown into the World Trade Center. I remember we went to work, and everybody's shell-shocked. The director of the main stage show, he was beside himself. His name's Jeff Richmond. He's Tina Fey's husband. He was trying to figure out how... Musical director. How the hell do I get to New York to my wife? Yes. It was crazy from a creative standpoint because, again, topical. Their show was now obsolete.

And our show, we had written most of it, like three quarters of the show. We didn't know what to do. Of course you must question, are we even allowed to go be funny in this time? And I remember I was going home one night with the stage manager because we lived near each other and we'd share a cab sometimes to go home. We were on Lakeshore Drive and...

the cab driver was Afghani and he had stickers of American flags all over his cab. My stage manager was like, this poor guy, he's got to try to be as patriotic as he possibly can. If you're Afghani or you're Iraqi or you're Persian and you're watching the news, the first person who was killed or lynched, if you will, was a Sikh, which means that white people don't know

shit about anything. If you're brown, you're in trouble. If you're brown, you're in trouble. I'm like, they killed a Sikh? And so then we created a character where I played an Afghani cab driver who wore an Uncle Sam hat so that anybody that got into his cab, he would know, I love America, America's

Greatest country in the world. We did that and we opened the show. I remember the first time we touted out that character on stage to audition the material. The laughter was thunderous, but you know, it wasn't regular laughter. It was cathartic laughter. And I went, oh my God.

I think my job might be important. Yeah. Oh, wow. It was a wonderful feeling. So how long were you in Chicago? Was Jordan there? Jordan had studied there before I got there. But he was with Boom? He went to Boom. I was there from July of 2001 until December of 03. So two years. And then they did a cast swap. The cast from Boom Chicago came...

came to chicago and our main stage cast went to the netherlands did you go i did not i was on the etc so i got to know jordan and we saw each other's shows and it was instant comedy love and we enjoyed each other with similar backgrounds being raised by single white mothers and we're biracial we had a lot in common and then he auditioned for mad well look can i say one thing about him while we're talking about him because we interviewed him it was fantastic yeah it's one of my favorites

What was revealed in that is that he was actually kind of a real lonely kid living in a very scary big world in New York. Yes, he was. And it's like the sweetest part. I just love learning that side of him. He was a lonely kid. He's also a brave person because he would traverse that city unnoticed.

by himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jordan is one of these people who kind of just gets on with life. He just pushes through. It's why Get Out exists. Eight years it took him to write that movie. Oh, really? He just pushed through. I really admire him. My two partners are the two people I kind of admire most in the world. I admire my wife and I admire Jordan. Their work ethic and their

Spirit. He's amazing. Plotters really impress me. People who can plot. People who plot. Yeah. I lose, you know, I'm lightning in a bottle. That's me too. I'm just like, let me, yeah. That's why we're here for two hours, right? Because you're like, something's going to stick. Something will stick.

But yeah, Jordan and Elle are both very much of that school of let me just keep writing it until it's right. I'm going to do what I have to do to get it right. And our first season of Key & Peele, Jordan used to say, it's just got to be bulletproof, man. We just got to out-hustle everybody else. Just work harder than everybody else. You know, like I got into improv to be off the cuff, baby. That's me. Jazz, baby. Jazz. You can't try to control this mistress. Don't control me.

Exactly. I'm like you. I'm exactly like you. I'm like, throw me in chaos. Make me feel like I'm about to fall down and then you'll see the best side. That's me too. Put me in a crisis and then I'll perform. Yes. But if you give me time to write it, I'm not a good self-starter in that way. I need the survival thing to click in. I'm drowning right now. I have to perform right now. Don't ask me to perform right now.

I have to perform right now or it's not going to happen. That's the race fuel. Exactly. So you did know him. And then ultimately, do you go to New York for a Mad TV audition? And did you ever audition for SNL? I never auditioned for SNL. It all happened in a pressure cooker.

And so Andrew Alexander, who owned the Second City, very, very good friends with Lorne and known him for years, and had supplied him a lot of talent. Yeah, him and Bernie Solins. And Bernie Solins ran the Second City before Andrew purchased it. So he and Lorne, both Canadians, very good friends. I got

scouted by mad TV. What year is this? This is 2003. Cause I want to know if you had the same feeling I did, which was, and I'll say this delicately. I ultimately respect a great deal. Everyone that did mad and was on mad.

But when you started at the Growlings and you went through that four-year process I went through to get on that stage, the goal was Sariant Live. And people would leave and they'd go to MADtv and you just felt like, I'm not in a position to not take work. I honestly hoped I didn't get presented that decision because I wanted to be on Sariant Live and I would have been on MADtv because I was penniless and I wasn't getting any work. I hear you. It was strange. I am a person who, I don't want to say I succumbed to the panic of

But there was a bird in the hand. Yes. That's this business, right? And by the way, you chose correctly. For your life. It worked out perfectly for my life. But it was a weird scenario when you were doing sketch and improv. If you're a groundling or you're a second citizen...

There's just no way. Everybody wants to be on SNL. You want to be Will Ferrell or go back to Belushi or Gilda. That's who you want to be. And what was funny is I remember doing my work and doing the show and a casting director was there. And what was funny is there were three women who were coming off or potentially coming off of Mad TV. I'm the one.

one that got the call to go audition. Right. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I don't have a vagina. What do they need me for? And they already had Aries and they just hired Jordan. But I went out and I auditioned and the executive producer, David Salzman, also a Detroiter. Oh, really? He's a New Yorker who went to Wayne State. And I auditioned. I remember talking to my agent and he said, look, we can talk

Talk to the producers who worked with Lorne. You know, they're not going to get Lorne to leave Amon Gansett, his summer house in Maine. Right. He doesn't know me from Adam. Andrew said, I know Tim's leaving the show soon, Tim Meadows. You might want to look at one of my guys. But Lorne's not going to stop his vacation to go to 8-H and just see me. So it was weird. You know, like you're looking at your dream. You're like, so am I just going to consciously give up that dream? Well, yes, that's the thing. You're declaring that's that for my SNL dream.

because no one will ever go from MADtv to- - Never are you going from MADtv to SML. - Yeah, it's an awesome opportunity. It's TV, it's doing what you love, but you are saying goodbye to something you've been singularly, or I was singularly focused on. - I wasn't focused on it in Detroit. It was unrealistic until we did a show. Sometimes people be in the audience, right?

But Dave Coulier. Full house. Full house. He's from Detroit. So Dave Coulier and Bob Saget were in the audience. Oh, how exciting. Coulier had to leave or something, or he was going to go see Darren McCarty's band or something like that. Darren McCarty's a famous hockey player. Red Wing. Oh, got it. And Saget came backstage and came and improvised with us. Lovely man. Oh, yeah, yeah. Generous guy. And then they told their managers about one of my castmates. Chris Farley had just died.

And one of my castmates resembled Chris Farley. Right. He and another one of my castmates, they were asked to come put a showcase together. These guys came to town and watched our show. Oh my God. They were managers. And all of a sudden, for the next two years, it got fucking weird. It was weird.

at the second city of Detroit. I bet. Really weird. Like, oh, this could lead to something more. This actually could lead to something more as opposed to us just being here at home in Detroit entertaining the people. Yeah, once you introduce dudes are flying in to pluck someone out of here, it fucks everyone's head up. It fucks everybody's head up. Yeah, then people hate each other and competitive. Yeah, I hear about stories about like really great improv troupes and the worst thing in the world is a three-man improv troupe.

who's excellent and poetry in motion and then one gets cast as a feature player and one gets cast as a writer and one's left out in the fucking court. Yes. Brutal. Brutal. Brutal. Absolutely brutal.

It's a savage business. It is. I think it was so good of you to take, well, obviously we know it worked out for you, but even just the singular goal thing doesn't exist actually in this industry. You have to learn to drop that so early on in order to succeed at all. There's no such thing as a singular goal in Hollywood. You can't do it. You cannot succeed that way. But you got to host. Yes. Now that was an amazing experience. What's cool about it is like, I

I still got here. The best moment of that whole experience. First of all, I was in London shooting a movie when I got the offer. I started kind of freaking out a little bit and thank God Fred Armisen was in the movie with me. And he said, just understand it's going to go by so fast on the actual day when you do the dress rehearsal and then you do the show. It's a blur. Try as you might to be in the moment. The best moment was whatever the longest commercial break was. I had finished my quick change and

So they were showing a video and then going to commercial. Oh, great. Right? So I actually had two and a half minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's so sweet. The stage manager was standing next to me and I was just going...

And Cecily's getting her change done. And I'm kind of just standing backstage. And then the stage manager goes, come here for a second. There's a crawl space area where clearly people have to crouch down a bit to get under this little scaffolding area. And on this piece of cement by the scaffolding area, there was a sign that said, caution, watch your head. And then written in pen under the word head, somebody had written the word Farley. Caution, watch your head, Farley.

And I think it was David Spade. Oh my God. Specifically for Chris. And then I almost started crying. Yeah. And I almost started crying. That was my one moment in the midst of the chaos where I got to just take a moment and remember, first of all, it's right before you walk on stage. Oh, I can't imagine. And that moment. So those are the two moments I remember.

Everything else is kind of a blur. That moment was sublime. That's great. I'm so glad you got that. I think to host is, as I said, an absolutely sublime experience. Well, what's funny is I'm now at a point where I was thinking, even if it ever came back up, somehow I had some triumph that would warrant me getting invited. I'm almost at the age where it's like, I don't know if I have that anymore.

anymore. I have absolutely not a doubt in my mind, Dax, that you would excel. I'm going to take that to heart. I think you would take the bull by the horns and you would absolutely murder it. I think your muscle memory would kick in. Everything you learned at the Groundlings would kick in. This is a more general question.

Do you feel yourself getting less brave as you get older? And you've been doing it longer. I kind of do. Yeah. What I did in Idiocracy, I couldn't do that now. I would be like, that's too big of a swing. I can't pull that off. You were younger and you made great comedic choices in the context of that movie. Idiocracy is actually one of the more important movies made in American cinema. Which is insane. It is perfect American satire.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

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Get email. I'll just put the info the team needs in a Canva doc, and I'll make it visual with images, charts, and graphics. Bring productivity killers to justice with creativity. Love your work at Canva.com. Do you know what's great about that? My mom went to the premiere, and...

She said to me in the kindest way possible, well, it's not my favorite thing I've seen you in. She didn't like it. She didn't like it. I'm like, okay, I can accept that. And then maybe three weeks later, she called me and she goes, I just went to Walmart and I'm starting to think that movie might be really good. Oh, that's terrific. Isn't that interesting? It's so societally sticky. A satire can only do two things.

It can only preface what's going to happen or project what a future could look like. And the only other thing it can do is become that future. Yeah. And it is becoming that future. Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking of idiocracy and I'm thinking about the presidential debate. I know. Interchangeable. It's interchangeable.

And also even just the consumer stuff is really materialized in a way. It's like I'll constantly be watching something and I'll be like, oh my God, they're wearing billboards now while they play this game. Irrigating your crops with monster trees with Gatorade. It's so good. But I do know what you mean going back to what you were saying about being brave because I do think when you're young, you're so risky.

And then as you get more and more and more success, there's more and more and more to lose, which inherently then makes you less risky, which can make you less funny. It's this weird... Yes, especially if that's the measuring stick for funny. Jordan said to me one time, I always have an interesting Jordan take on something because he says such brilliant things.

Also, when you're younger and you're poor, you are living the life that most people are living. Yes. If you're middle class or lower middle class, so you can stand on a stage with a microphone and say, you guys ever notice? Because they do notice. Exactly. But you can't say, did you ever notice when your private plane is like 20 years old and you're a little afraid about getting on it?

Like, what? You're like, I paid 70 grand for this charter, and it's got an interior from a G4? From a G4? Yeah, yeah. My chair only swivels 90 degrees. What is going on? Yes. I mean, if we were in a Falcon X7, that'd be different. But, I mean, this is a G4 chassis? Bleh.

I hope the aeronautics have been updated. Especially if you start to isolate yourself, I get nervous for somebody who might want to jump back into the world of stand-up or comedy after being wildly successful for a long time ago. But do you have any connection to the people who are in your audience? So my observation that's very similar to that, and I specifically watch it with Will Ferrell, because...

At some point, I was like, he does a lot of period pieces. You know, he did Anchorman, he did another Anchorman, then he did the basketball one. What I think is interesting is

You're no longer subjugated by a shitty boss, a shitty teacher. Most people's life, they're dealing with someone above them. And you do transcend that with success. So really, your well is going to be back in time because that's when you can remember really having to deal with some other asshole. And that's when I really thought about that. It's like, yeah, that's the peril of success is that you're no longer reoccurring.

really having to deal with some crazy personality that's above you that you have to placate. And you're at their mercy. Yes. You're picking up every little annoying thing they do and you're just crafting this character. And even when you're doing your first exercises in comedy theaters, it's like, do a teacher, do a boss. You know, these people you hated. Yeah. People that you rail against. Yes. Because you're young. Now you're the character. Now you're the character. What am I supposed to play?

I'm going to do a movie about a guy who's having an existential crisis about being the boss. Because everything else has been... He wants to see that movie. Exactly. Well, even any existential crisis, like, oh, all your other problems were solved. So now you're at the existential philosophical... The philosophical stuff, right. Which always makes for great dramatic action. Yeah, it's a conundrum. Yeah, comedians in particular, historically, don't age very well. I think that's why Bill Murray's such a phenom. It's like somehow that guy held on to...

The same angle. For almost 50 years. Because I think about the work that we didn't see him do at the Second City before he made it to Saturday Night Live. Right. He is a phenom because there's no way to classify him or describe him. You want his career and you also don't want his career. I want to admire his career, but I don't know how I would navigate that. How would I even try to emulate that?

career. Truly. Okay. So just fast forwarding through the couple of things I thought were fascinating about Key and Peele that I learned researching you and you already alluded to it, which is

Initially, Jordan was like, this has to be written bulletproof. And that the first season was almost no improv. Yep. I found this fascinating. And then at some point you had to say to him, like, hey. How do you feel about us opening up the playbook a little bit? Yeah, like we also do this thing that's really special and electric. And we're not doing that at all. He was feeling so confident about his skills. And he was. He was at the top of his game our first season of the show. So he felt like.

I know I can write this in such a way that I can force the laughs to come. I know where the punchline comes. I know where the turn comes. I know where the jokes are going to be. And let's just make sure that we give Peter, our director, everything he needs to give us the best possible product to look at. And then it was the second season that we started. It was a controlled experiment. We're going to have some pieces that are completely and utterly dependent on the writing. And if we can interpret them in an interesting way, so be it.

But then let's also have playtime. So traditional straight man clown scenes and sometimes what we call peas in the pod scenes. So you know the two car valets that we play? Yes. Liam Neeson's and the Batman's and the Bruce Willis and all that stuff. They were written, but I don't know if you guys know Colton Dunn. Yes. So Colton's always very versatile. He's good at writing things.

skeleton scenes that you can fill in. And he's also good at writing fun joke offbeat scenes where you want to get the lines right so that you get the quirkiness of it. We started sprinkling that in. And then early third season, we started doing more macabre

where if you watch the third and fourth seasons of our show, it shouldn't surprise you too much that Jordan is a horror director. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In retrospect, the clues were there. That's funny. Do you think this show's more popular now than when it was on TV? I do. I think it's way more popular now. I don't know what the share numbers are, but I think we used to hover around 1.6 to 2%.

2 million viewers a week, 2 million tops. It wasn't until when sketches started going onto YouTube and people had a sense of ownership about the sketches. Like I found this thing and I sent it to my friend. Also, it created a narrative that we never intended. It's funny what people don't pay attention to.

They don't pay attention to the bug in the bottom of the screen. There's the double C. This is from Comedy Central. Oh, yeah. This is from a show. Who are these two guys making these great videos on YouTube? Yes. Well, it's like a band at that point. Yeah. You're like, I discovered this. I'm in on this. I'm sharing this. You give them ownership over it. That's what started the phenomenon. And now what is bizarre to me are when 15-year-olds...

Our show went off the air in 2015. Right. Yeah, they were six when it went off. They were six years old. So that's because of TikTok. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. It is. And you know what's cool about it too is I use it that way. Probably once every six months, I miss the hat sketch so much that I have to go watch it. I cannot believe that sketch. For anyone who's not seen it,

Two dudes come out. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there, Doug. I can't tell you how much Chris and I would go. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there, Doug. I'm in there. But you guys come out. One guy's still got the receipt on his hat, which is a thing. And the other dude feels really bummed. Like, fuck.

I just got shown up. And then he shows up the next day and he's got his hat. It's in the bag. I can't remember the total progression. Yeah. First one is, you know, the kids wear the hats with just the stickers on them. Yep. Stickers. And the next guy has his hat in the bag with the receipt. He's wearing it, the bag in the bag on his head. And then the next guy has the hat in a plexiglass display case.

on his head. And then the other guy literally has a woman, a Chinese woman, sewing a hat. He has a sweatshop on his head. I wanted it to be a kid. I don't know why they wouldn't let us have a kid. I wanted a young Asian kid making the hat.

I didn't care where they were from. They could have been from Taiwan or Bangladesh. Oh my God. Fuck that. We just had a guest on recently where he and I geeked out about that sketch for a while. The other one that I'll have to watch too once every six months is any of these Terry's get froggy. That's a Colton Dunn special. Yeah, that sketch.

The sketch is ridiculous. The best part about that sketch, first of all, Malcolm Barrett's amazing in it, but the woman who did all of her hair and wigs through the last season of the show, every production meeting, she goes, do you guys think there's any sketch where we could put the braid guy? And those guys, the way that we're dressed are two real people.

Okay. Two real people. She found crazy images and she went, this guy's afro is shaved into a hat. And I was like, I don't know where that's going to fit. Might have been Jordan was like, maybe the terrorist guys. That might be a good look for those guys. Oh,

Unbelievable. And the substitute teacher. That's an enormous one. I mean, that thing, who knew? And I'll tell you, you've affected people's lives because my best friend in the world is Aaron Winkley. And I can't tell you how many people call him A-Ron. I'm really happy to be here talking about it to sketch people.

We do on average six sketches a show. So two sketches a week would go online. We have them out there in the world for people to see as marketing. And then we put something at the end of the sketch saying, check out next week's episode of Key & Peele. So we were picking the sketches. I don't even remember what the other sketch was, but I remember whatever it was, we went, ooh, that one. And then we said, what should the second sketch be? And I think it was me and Jordan and the other two showrunners. We're just sitting in an office one day. We're like, maybe the teacher one.

Maybe the teacher wants. But that was actually all of our attitudes was that's a very good sketch. It's a clever sketch. But when you're surrounded all day, five to six days a week by sketch writers, everyone just kind of goes, oh, that's a good one. It's super misleading because inevitably this stuff that was all of our favorites would get on stage on Sunday and it would tank.

And then the one we were all ho-hum about was a huge hit because you get too esoteric in it. It was too pedestrian, maybe. That's what I wanted you to say. For a sketch comedian, it was too pedestrian. It's like, it's pretty much by the numbers. It's on the notes. Anybody can write this sketch. Except not. Except for it's the best sketch ever. We're like, God damn it, Rich, the guy who wrote it. We're like, that's clever. That's a good one. And we all

Piled on and everyone had their own names they wanted to add to it. The comedic game was clear and clever. But who knew? The legs of it are really fascinating. You just don't tire of it. It's not like you want to hear three names and be done. You want to hear a hundred names. You wish it could go on and on and on and on. There's a riddle in it.

You're trying to figure out, you're like actively listening. And you're going, now what's he going to say next? And am I going to be able to figure out what the name really is? Right. Yeah. It was like a weird game. There was probably something dopamine level happening. There's like a slot machine aspect to it. Which a lot of sketches do. It's funny, the two most popular sketches in the history of Key & Peele both have to do with names.

Oh, really? The football name sketch where the guys say their name and what school they went to. And they said, now let's meet the players from the West. You know, Jack Marius, Tech Therapeutics, Michigan State University. You know, all those people. The first time my manager called us and said, did you see on YouTube how many hits? This is 12 years ago. So I went online and he's like, look up the substitute teacher sketch. And I was like, 25 million hits. That would be like the season finale of Friends. Right, exactly. I mean, it was like, what's happening?

That's happening? We had no idea. It was just a random, like, oh, let's put the teacher sketch on there. And they'll get it now. That's so interesting. Okay, we must now talk about Transformers 1. Yes. Now, before we talk about that, this is just a really nosy question. You are in so many mega movies doing VO. Lego Movie, Hotel Transylvania, Angry Birds, Super Mario Brothers, Toy Story, The Lion King, Pinocchio. There's way more.

Have you made more money doing voiceover than you have acting? I'm going to say no. Okay. But I think it's got to be close. Yeah, maybe Transformers 1 puts you over. It might because one of the things is you don't always get paid a ton, especially in a franchise. If it's the first movie, you get paid a kind of a nominal fee up front and then you hope it does well at the box office and you make money in your bumps.

I want to say Kristen might have made 50 grand for Frozen 1. Probably. Before the bonuses. And then, who knows what she made on Frozen 2? $650 million. She had 61% of pros. All of it is put into this ad. That's right. Can't you tell? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good nosy question. Yeah.

Yeah, because where you crush is the residuals of it, too. It's the fucking residuals. Like, when you're in a normal, without a paddle, lifetime residuals, I don't know what they've hit, maybe 200 grand or something. I know it mostly because stuntmen friends of mine get real residuals. And some of these stuntmen are in all the Marvel movies.

Of course. These motherfuckers are making $700,000 a year on the residual. Yes. Anybody who wasn't an A-list actor who's in that movie, the 200 actors, you made more than all of them put together. Once you're in these billion-dollar movies, man. You get the resids, bro. Well, that's what the strike was a lot about. All about the residge. Okay, so now Transformers 1. It's fantastic. It's fun. It's exciting. It's an animated version of Transformers. Yes. So it's the second animated Transformers film.

The first one came out in 1986, and man, is it a strange movie. The cartoon came out in 84 in the States and became such a huge hit. And then the thing about this movie that's also very exciting to me because I'm a big Transformers fan, nostalgically speaking, from childhood. Did you have any of the toys? I had one of them, but I can't remember which one it was. I think it was a hand-me-down toy. I have some resentment against Transformers.

Because you never got to have one of those. I didn't have them. And these kids in your class were fucking transforming them. And there's a group gathered around. Sometimes, I'll be honest with you, I couldn't transform them. It was too complicated. They're very hard. And they're not easy to transform. When I got my hands on one, I couldn't do it. This is barely fun at all. It's like a puzzle. And they could snatch it out of your hand. If I wanted a Rubik's Cube, I would have...

There was one in particular that I wanted called Soundwave. He transformed into a boombox. Oh, fuck yeah. And he had a little cassette shoot and there were little cassettes that turned into mini transformers. Oh, that's very cool. There was a little dog and a little bird. There were spies. Also, the two biggest things in the world at that time were...

Fucking jam boxes and transformers. They combine the two. I watched the movie recently, the old one. And what he does is he goes, and he turns into the boom box. And then one of the little spies, the bird, goes inside of him into the cassette shoot. And then he plays what the little bird recorded. Oh. You see, he plays what the bird recorded. It's very analog. We had such a great time. This is one of the good things. And I think this applies to biopics as well. This seems pretty obvious. Yeah.

But do what you can to write a really good story. And then it's almost like slap the Transformers on later. Take all of the intertextuality and all the nostalgia out of it. Write a standalone movie that I would want to go see and get invested in the story. And then you can slap all the other stuff on later. What's the kernel of the story? And it has a very primal story, which is in search of power, right? They can't transform. And we also meet, we're not ruining anything because it's in the trailer, such a

friendship and a bond of brotherhood between the two lead characters. And if you watch how the movie progresses and evolves, it's heartbreaking. It's about filial love. It's about brotherhood. It's about friendship and what can rip a friendship asunder. And inequality, like not being allowed to have what other people have. And being fleeced and the system is against you. Yes. I know the stakes are very high in the movie, but it's also about

letting go, something that you could let go of that you don't let go of. I'm trying to be vague, but if the attribute of being able to forgive or let go

existed in this one character, there would be no Megatron. The character's name is D-16. We would not have the world of the Transformers that we have. Yeah, because this is an origin story. This is an origin story for everybody. And it's interesting because also we hear about in all the Michael Bay movies how we left Cybertron and Cybertron was destroyed and it was ravaged and it was under attack. Cybertron, Cybertron.

And you never see Cybertron. It's Superman's origin planet. Yeah, the Krypton origin. Whereas this whole movie, there's no humans in this movie. They're all Cybertronians or whatever you want to call them. And you get to see Cybertron. For people who love Transformers, they're just going to be like, oh, what am I seeing? Yeah, they're going to be jizzing all over. All over the joint. Yes, the spores are going to be sticky.

Oh, fun. Did you get to record with anybody? No. That's a bummer, right? Yeah, it's a bummer. Like, you're in a movie with Hemsworth. Yeah, and Scarlett. My main obsession is Brian Tyree Henry. I just fucking love this guy so much. I do, too. There's such depth to his work. I like a chameleon actor, a chameleonic actor. Ooh, chameleonic. I've never heard that. When you see him in Bullet Train, and then you see in Atlanta. The show is so authentic that I am thinking...

Which is my favorite thing. It's like, oh, they found this guy in Atlanta. He's not an actor. He's so good in Atlanta. He is. Yeah. But he's Juilliard trained, right? He went somewhere. Yeah. It's either Gale or Juilliard. It's not the streets of Atlanta. Yeah, it's not the streets. Yes, right. Exactly. He didn't go to the school of hard knock. No, he's like a classically trained actor. We met before. It might have been, he did a movie called Hotel Artemis with Jodie Foster and...

Sterling K. Brown. And I think I met him there and he was a Key & Peele fan and I had seen him on Atlanta and we talked a little bit. So we know each other a little bit. We got to go to Comic-Con together. It was me and him and Chris. We did a Comic-Con panel. What's it like being with Hemsworth at Comic-Con? Because he's Thor. It's exactly what I expected it to be. In my experience, there's such a different dynamic. I know television doesn't really exist anymore, but between a television performer and a movie star. And an action movie star. And an action movie star. So when people did recognize him, it was always...

It's that. Right. When people recognize me, they come up to hug me. Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. Because I'm a human. Forget that he plays a superhero. He doesn't look like a human in real life. Yes. Because nobody can look like that. No. So he is a fucking superhero. And so people are in awe.

Don't you want to walk around as him for just like a day? Just a day. Just to feel what it's like to breathe. Or like every time you turn over your shoulder, everyone you just pass has stopped. And they're like, they're like trying to collect themselves. You would hate that. For a day? As long as the street's all women. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if the street is all women.

I don't want to turn around and all the dudes on the street are staring at me. I want all the women on the street. Because some of those dudes want to fight you. Yes. That's the thing. Could you imagine being Stallone? I don't think anybody ever thought they could beat up Arnold.

but I think people think they might've been able to beat up Stallone. I agree. Why is that? And he's Rocky. You know what I mean? Like, yes. You have a fantasy that you could get so tough. No one would ever fuck with you again. Invites more. Bumblebee's a good guy to play. He was a lot of fun to play and he's kind of exuberant and fun and

And also the fact that we got to give him a voice. Dan Gilrazano, I think was his name. The guy who played Bumblebee in the 80s on the TV show when he could talk. But I love the storyline from the Michael Bay movies when he couldn't speak. It kind of endeared him to people. Yes. We like a little robot that can't talk. Yeah, that can't talk. He's got a little WALL-E quality to him. Yeah. A little Johnny Five. Yeah, Johnny Five. Johnny Five.

This is alive. Johnny Five. This is neither here nor there. You have probably worked with this guy. He's a good friend of mine, Clay Cohen. He's a stunt coordinator. And his father...

was the original Optimus Prime. Pete Cullen. You know! Peter Cullen. Yes! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he has had secretly this whole life of supporting himself by being Optimus Prime. Oh, absolutely. Especially back then when you could get paid handsomely for doing voice work. And he did it through the 80s, right? In the current movies. And there was a character on the cartoon called Jazz, who was an Autobot, who was voiced by Scatman Crothers.

scatman crothers was the old bald janitor in the shining oh wow that's scatman crothers and bought a home and everything like when you yes i love he did tons of voices he did voices of like the harlem globe charters cartoons all those kind of cheap korean-made cartoons that came in the late 70s and 80s that were on saturday morning and scatman crothers he wasn't buckwheat he

He was Stymie from the Little Rascals. No way. So Robert Blake was a little rascal and Stymie was a little rascal. I know a little bit about childhood actors. So Uncle Fester from the Addams Family, Jackie Coogan, is the kid. Oh, the Coogan principal. The Coogan fund. The Coogan account. The Coogan account, yes. Oh.

Jackie Coogan, the kid from The Tramp, the little kid that's in the movie with Charlie Chaplin, is Jackie Coogan, who played Uncle Fester. And you know how much your parents have to rip you off to get known as the Coogan account? The Coogan account. That is named after Jackie Coogan and not after Gary Coleman. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's a very, very good animated movie. Like, it's so well done. Josh Cooley, the guy who wrote it and directed it, his pedigree is...

second and now he's a Pixar guy. He did Toy Story 4. That's where we met and he's really quite brilliant. And so people should see this movie. It's really terrific. Yeah, it really is. It's very cool that they decided to do an animated version. An animated version of it. I think it's right because you can do anything you want. Okay, the very last thing I'm going to ask you to do. I've been trying to get him on passionately with emails and friends of friends for six and a half years. I've offered to fly to go interview him. Yeah. Shaquille.

Trying to get Shaquille. I want to interview Shaquille right now. I would like to interview Shaquille for just a few minutes. Shaquille, you're down in Atlanta or Florida now? Florida. Sometimes I'm trying to get back on my TNT. Oh. Get our show back. Trying to get our show back. And you're in the boating now? Did I see you? I'm in the boating. I'm the anchor.

Oh, that's so good. I fucking love Shaquille O'Neal. Shaquille O'Neal. He's the single best follow on Instagram. He? You know what he is? He?

He's the Snoop Dogg of basketball. He's the other Snoop Dogg. You're absolutely right. You know Snoop Dogg is our coolest uncle? Yes. Jack's the other coolest uncle. They're the two mascots for fucking having fun. Once a month, he has fallen in love with a song and he's learned the words and now he's just going to do a dance routine and sing the whole song for you while he's doing whatever else he's doing. Ha ha!

And I was like, could this guy be happier and more fun loving? He's just content. When you interview anyone that's worked with Shaquille, they're like, oh, greatest two years of my life being teammates with Shaquille. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't forget to have fun. Winning's good, but like your life is the other shit. He's really inspirational, Shaquille. He is inspirational. You're right. Don't forget to have fun. And you go, oh, that's frivolous. It's not. It's important.

Well, Keegan, I always love when I bump into you. It happens occasionally and we get on so well. It's always great. We always have a good time when we see each other. The problem is when I'm here, I stay in Century City. That's perverted. I lived in Los Feliz for 17 years. So if I can hook up with Jordan, we'll have dinner. And I was like, I will come to you. And a part of that, to be honest with you, is I might bump into Dax and Kristen. Oh,

Plug it back. We could definitely put some effort into arranging that. We would love to hang. That would be great. Century City, you have a favorite hotel there or something? Yeah, the Fairmont Century Plaza. We love it there. Directly across from CAA? Directly across from CAA. Are you represented there? I am represented at CAA. I would get one of those long... A pea shooter to my agent. No, I'd get one of those like pirates binocular, just the one long one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would try to see my agent. Arrgh.

Making deals. This has been amazing. Yeah, so much fun. Yeah, thanks for coming. Long time coming. So glad you're here. Everybody see Transformers 1. It's fantastic. You're fantastic. This has been a blast. Let's do it again. You're fantastic. You're fantastic. I'm in there, dog. I'm in there, dog. I'm in there, dog. I'm in there, dog. Tuck it, tuck it. I'm going to tuck it. I'm going to tuck it. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

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Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. Hi. Hi. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Who did I want to say that? Oh, I was trying. I was rehearsing the other day doing it as Steven Seagal. I was wondering if I could do a whole intro with him. Oh, wow. You probably could. I got stuck on talking like him. You know how I do. You got stuck. Around the house. Yeah. My mother, every time I talk, I come in and say,

You don't know this about me, but I've been a sheriff for 22 years in Wayne Parish. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Oh, see, yeah, this is what happens. You just can't stop. I know, I know why he talks like that. It feels good. Really? You should try it in your apartment tonight. I know you won't do it here live. Yeah, I won't. But it feels good. It's like almost drunk. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like half in, half out. My algorithm just will not stop delivering me. Every day I see five or six new funny videos where he claims he taught someone a lethal kick. And it's incredible. Yeah.

Yeah. So we have I have some some, I guess, housekeeping or just some update on Aaron and I's crazy trip. Let's hear it. Well, some people will know, but Aaron and I went to we landed in Dallas, picked up Big Brown and immediately went to a Sprouts.

and did a beer tasting of Ted Seeger's. And they're 90 minutes long. And we met several hundred armcherries. And the things that armcherries are doing in the wild, okay, I sent you some of them. One is a gal showed up. Did I already tell you this one? Showed up with a baseball hat that said, really great station. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, you're not going to get better than that. No, that's so good. Two lovely, unassuming ladies. This was, I think, in Memphis showed up in. No, it was in another part of Dallas. Showed up in two matching shirts with unicorns on them because they know I don't like unicorns. And it says spray all day. Wow. Yeah. And there's did you notice that? Because I sent you a picture. I said, look at these shirts. I don't know if you do. You see it said spray all day. I'm just trying to act like you're trying to act like you didn't see it. That's helpful. Yeah. OK, keep playing along like that.

So there was these shirts and there were unicorns on it. And guess what it said? What did it say? Spray all day. What? That's brand new information. Do you think the unicorns came from the unicorn conversation about the mug? I do. Wow. That I don't like unicorns. They're fast. They're on top of it. Oh, they're really, really fast. So many cool things. We got a really, oh, we got a framed photo of Chris Lydon. Stop. Stop.

Yes. Where is it? We got so much stuff. The bus is full of fun stuff. I couldn't bring it all back in this trip. I'm going to have to be bringing it back after Christmas or something. These sweet arm cherries. Oh my God. So many sweet arm cherries. We did seven of these meet and greets in like

50 hours. Yeah, you did a lot. You packed in a lot. And we drove 700 miles in the bus. It was scheduled. I should have looked better at the schedule. Okay. You felt overwhelmed. I'm in a pattern right now of I should have paid more attention to certain things. I'm kind of at a low point. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. It's important to delegate. Yeah. And so. You can't not. Or you got to do way less stuff.

You have to delegate. And you did that a couple times. Yeah. And you don't love the result. Oh, well. But that's life. Listen, I also, I love the result. Erin and I had so much fun. We met, you know, we met a couple thousand armchairs. Were any of them not armchairs? Or was everyone an armchair? There were a couple folks that like saw there was a commotion in the store. Yeah.

Then recognize me from a movie. Yeah. But I think for them, it was probably really confusing because people would come up. I hug everybody and then we would talk for a while. And I and I heard some really, really powerful and heartbreaking and beautiful stories. People's family members who have OD, people with addict parents, you know, and.

So I think for the person that had just seen me in Chips, they were a little confused by what was going on. Like, what is this? This guy from the movie, he's hugging everyone. He's talking for a really long time about chips. Well, it would make sense because you're in a grocery store and it's like maybe he's bringing back chips. Maybe it's Chips 2 and it's a tie-in with potato chips. Back to that initial confusion over the title. Oh, and this hilarious thing started happening where people were bringing their babies home.

And the babies kept getting younger and younger. And we're holding the babies in the photos and bouncing the babies and I'm playing with their toes. And I love babies. Yeah, babies are cute. I really, I remembered how much I love babies on this trip. But the babies kept getting younger. And there was a moment where we were holding identical twins that were five weeks old. Did I send you a picture of that? No. If you did, I'm going to pretend like you didn't. Oh, right, right. Now I won't know what I, okay. It's going to be hard to navigate this. And we're like, well, that's got to be the youngest five weeks old. Nope.

I held a baby that was two weeks old. What? And then our joke became, we're going to hear a woman in labor in like the next aisle. And they were going to hand us this slippery baby. This baby's just born in this grocery store. Oh my God. Literally kissing babies. I felt like I was like maybe running for an office. He has so many babies. That's so funny.

And now I know that's the favorite part of their job because you get those little tiny little soft little babies. Yeah. And they all look so different. There's a great variety of babies even though they're all miniature. I wonder if I should say what I think. Some of the babies weren't attractive? Well, I didn't see any. That wasn't fair. Oh, they were all very attractive babies. I'm sure they were very hot babies. Yeah, hot, hot babies. Sexy babies. They were very sexy. Yeah, of course. But I like babies...

Once they're some months old. They feel too fragile for you? Knock on wood all the time when you're with them? I know they're not fragile. They just came out of a vagina in a vulva. And they got yanked out of there. Oh, and they get handled like a chicken when they come out. But I do think they're scary. You know, they're brand new. You don't know them yet. And it's like, who are they? They're strangers. And then I'm just going to be honest. I don't think they're cute yet.

I don't think they're cute until they're three months old. And you know what's funny? Hot take. Very hot take. Yeah, I know. I wonder if it's really going to bite me. But it's my truth. It's your truth. What a couple fights you've picked. Dog community, huge, thriving, well-organized militant. And now the new moms community. Don't forget the Rhode Islanders. Oh, little brother energy. And Arizona State. Oh, yes. But you've taken back your...

I have because of that one guy really turned it all around. That's all it takes sometimes is one person's story. One vote can make a difference. They don't like interact with you with their cute eyes and stuff until they're about three months old. Well, that's the challenge when you get this little 18-day-old baby and you see if you can get a little...

reaction to startle it, spook it. No, I didn't spook any of them. Can I tell you one funny thing? All the babies liked me a lot, but most of these babies have been hearing my voice since they were in utero. They think you're their dad. I am their dad. No. Oh, right. That's a cult leader who thinks that. Yeah. I was like, oh, I'm starting on a great footing with these babies. They've already heard my voice a bunch. Because when they first walk up, too tall, too many drawings on his arm, doesn't look right, scaly. Yeah.

Then you hear the voice and all of a sudden, goo-goo-ga-ga. Yeah. But also, you know, they can't really see colors yet. They only can see black and white at first. Are you sure about this? Yeah, I am. That doesn't feel right. It is. Hold on. Newborns see in black and white and shades of gray.

But they can detect some color if it's highly saturated, relatively large. That's you. That's me. And a certain hue like red. You don't have red hair. My skin sometimes looks red. Okay. Speaking of that, sometimes I do think we look pretty orange. And I want to just tell the people I don't look that orange in real life.

Someone did mention that I was wearing too much makeup and I was like, maybe I got a little heavy handed with the bronzer. That could have been... It's not makeup. It's... The tint of the... Something's happening that's making us look orange. I like it though. I know. We look warm and friendly. In my head, I was like...

Because before we started the show, we were like all going through the video and making notes and stuff. And I was like, it's looking orange to me. And you were like, I like it. And I was like, yeah, but we did change. And then we changed. But then I thought maybe you secretly told Rob to change back. I didn't do that. Right, Rob? Correct. You did not. I did not do that. We just naturally got on your baby. We just got black and white. We just got naturally oranger, I think.

I'm not orange. It could be the cow. I don't have a ton of integrity, but when there's a group vote and I lose in this dynamic, happens pretty frequently, I don't bring it back up. Okay. I accept my outvotedness. I wasn't mad.

But I was like, ooh, ooh, this is not looking, this is looking a little orange for me. And I just want to tell people that. I want it to be more appealing to the half of the country. We've slowly made some adjustments. Like even the bookshelf lights are now on and they weren't when we did the color test. So there is going to be an adjustment. Okay.

Okay. Overall. Well, we might need to adjust again. I'd rather be looking too warm than too cold. I know. But see, this, wow, we're about to get into something deep. Okay, great. Racial. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the world is used to lighting white people.

Well, you know what I mean? Really, though, like the same lighting for you is is going to look much different than lighting for me. When Kristen and Cheeto were in a scene together, it's almost impossible to light them.

Yeah. To get Cheetle's face to be really bright and sharp. Kristen would be blown out. Exactly. This is real. And we can't because we all switch places and do like I sit there sometimes, I sit here sometimes. So we can't really. Dial in. Do perfect lighting. But I just in case any suitors, like it's mainly this is towards suitors. Just know you're not as orange. Yeah. It's not like something we're doing for Halloween or like fall. Yeah.

an orange tint. It is what it is. And I don't look this way. And also, but you know, you do look this way because everyone's saying you're so hot. Well, I don't. So if you do like it, I also don't look this way and be prepared. And if you see me in real life, it's so interesting to have three different looks potentially because we have what people thought we look like in photographs upstairs. Now we're on video. And then you also have real life. Three versions. Yeah. Oh my God. You remembered? Ding, ding, ding. Or a completely new thought. Okay.

Completely new thought. But you'll see why I got here. I did my cognitive test yesterday. I'm really glad you're bringing this up. I did mine too on Friday. You did? Yeah. Do you guys have your results back yet? No, I just did it yesterday. I didn't know there were results. Oh yeah, there's results. I got mine yesterday. Dax got his results yesterday. I did. What do you want to brag about? Go ahead. Or are you not bragging?

No, I'm bragging. Oh, okay. I want to say, like, I'm trying to frame this in a way where it's not repugnant, then I'm going to brag. And the way I did that at home was to say, it's very nice to hear with my childhood. Yeah. Like, it felt a doctor. How many times, though, are you going to have to hear it?

Like you did the test for dyslexia and it was the same situation. You're super high. But your scars are still with you, right? No. I don't have any. You feel beautiful. I don't have any. Total unanimous consensus and it's not penetrating. I'm totally fixed. Okay, wait. Okay. So go ahead and I want to know about your results.

He was like, he was blown away. He's like, I, maybe because I read dumb as well, maybe, but you know, whatever. Don't do all this. Just tell us. Okay. Sorry. I was 99th percentile on two things and I was a hundredth in one. I set a record on the test. Wow.

What was the one you, what was the hundredth? I'm guessing. Yeah. The thing I'm imagining I said a hundred on is when they would give me a letter and I would think of words. Cause I was just blasting. I was rough on that. I did terrible. I think it's probably normal to be bad at that. But part of it is, and I kept thinking about this after, cause this was my own self-defense where I was like, could this be test anxiety? Uh, yeah.

Because there's a person there administrating the test. You're not on your own. It's time. You say as many words that start with an F in a minute. Exactly. There's one section of the test where she goes away. The real life lady goes away and you're doing some pattern recognition and it's just on the computer. And so no one's watching you. Yes. And I was really good at that.

Yeah. And there was a part of me that was like, I think it has to do with feeling like I have to perform for this woman. Yes. Okay, so you think it was the letters. I may have made a mistake in all of this because I...

Was well rested. It was ideal situation, blah, blah, blah. We hadn't recorded that day. I'm almost thinking, well, fuck, I'm just not going to do as good on the test in two years. And it's going to look like I have Alzheimer's, but really it's just like I happened to have, I was on fire that day. Yes. I also struggle with this because the night before I had a girl's dinner,

at my house where I cooked. And of course we had wine. And I was like, I thought about, should I not have wine? Cause I have this cognitive test tomorrow. Then I was like, but that's dumb because I normally have wine. Right, right, right. So I want to get the baseline. The real baseline. And then I did think, well, that will be interesting if I do like take a big break from drinking and then take it again. And then go, oh, you have reverse Alzheimer's.

Your brain's getting better and better and better. And we don't know how to stop it. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm proud of you and I'm not surprised. I was really delighted. I think you probably did really good research.

really good on there's a section where she tells a story yeah and you have to repeat back as many details as you can from the story and like best case scenario you're kind of saying it for a bit the football player goes fishing and he gets bit but he's still able to go and perform well yeah he's a star quarterback 17 stitches 17 oh I think I said 14 it was on his left hand left ring finger

He played for the Atlanta Panthers. I think he did better than me. And he was, well, I did yesterday. Oh. And he was still able to perform on Sunday against the Thrashers. And so I also had a leg up because there's no Atlanta Panthers. And I know that. There is Atlanta Thrashers, though. That's the hockey team. Oh, wow. So I knew a little more.

You feel like you had a regional advantage. And he was the captain and the quarterback. I added captain in very last minute. She was like, is there anything else? And I was like, no. And then I was like, captain. I think you did better than me at that one. I said, do you think this is nature or nurture? This is my job of...

Three times a week, learning everything I can about a person and a subject and then having to repeat it. And so much verbal practice, so much verbal dexterity, just practice from talking so much, you know, or is it my activity? I have noticed there's this, I think there's a suspicious level of clarity and alertness among talk show hosts as they age. Like,

Stern still sounds 40 years old. Letterman still sounds like. Yeah. I think the job has something to do with it. It must. It's like any job. I mean, you're working a muscle and a skill. And that's why after people retire, often there's a huge drop off. Well, I thought about that.

Yeah. Might make you happy. I was like, well, shit, if I'm not doing this job, am I going to be in the 10th percentile? There's a lot to glean from these tests. Like they should do it midway through someone's career. Then at the end, then after retirement and like see what's happening. I'm nervous to get my results, but also I, I told, I was like, this is humbling. Uh,

And she was like, yeah, she's like, you have no idea. People get so mad. She's like, I've had a lot of people leave in the middle. Sure, they're embarrassed. They're upset. They think they're operating at a certain level. Did you do good at that drawing one? Everyone thinks they're above average at everything. Yeah. These tests we learn. Yeah. What did you say? What one? Remember the drawing one where you have to do like 1A, 2B. I liked that one. Yeah, yeah. I liked that one, but I fucked one of them up.

Really? Yeah, I started going too fast and I missed one. So you're going to be 100th in everything because it sounds like you did better than me. No, I didn't. The one thing that I do know I did well at because I could see her surprise. And I think it was surprise because I was not good at the other ones. Oh.

I think people will find these interesting. So I'm going to say what some of the games were. Okay. By the way, I had to have a talk with Dr. Richard Isaacson. He's like, how much are you going to be talking about on the podcast? I was like, oh, very fair question. Let's talk. Are we allowed? Yeah. Like, what do you, I go, you know, it was introduced on an episode. So it's like,

So I said, it's funny enough. I go, I know we'll talk about the cognitive tests. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's fine. Okay. Yeah. There's like a, this is like an hour and a half long thing. There's lots of different tests. And the first one, yes, she tells a story and you have to repeat back as much as you can.

Then there's like— A list of random words. A list of random words. Cloud. There's five. First, she just does five. And then you do that. And then later, she does a list of 15 words. And then you come back to it later. Like an hour later, yeah. Oh, my God. This morning, I was trying to see if I could do them today. Yeah, of course. I can do some. Should we try it? I did so bad. I got like three. Okay.

When we found out Rob was too stupid to work with us. Rob, you probably had test anxiety. I did and I didn't sleep well either. You do this thing where you find that out and then you start replaying every interaction you've ever had with Rob and you go, oh yeah, maybe that time. Maybe it's just because he can only remember three words. But when they had them all listed on the grid, I was able to get them all there. I got them all there too. I was pretty confident in that. Yeah.

Okay, so there was one where she would give a list of numbers. She'd say 6, 8, 9, and you'd have to repeat them back in backwards order, 9, 8, 6. And then she kept adding numbers to that until you made a mistake. And she said, I did really well on that. Oh, wonderful. Yeah.

So I'm just proud of that. Anyway, it was interesting. It was really interesting. It's stressful. It was stressful. By the time I was doing the patterns, I was like, I'm so tired. Another thing I think I did quite well on, though I don't know for sure, but I feel very confident that I got 100 on the smell test. Oh, yeah. And I certainly didn't. Did he tell you? No. Did you guys finish any tests early? I finished the pattern one so early I had to wait five minutes.

You know, because they make you wait because they want enough time to pass before you do that original pattern thing. Yeah, yeah, I had to wait. I had to wait an hour. What about the ones from the lady? I don't know. What do you mean early? Well, the color one, I had like an extra 15 seconds and she was like, oh, you've got 15 extra seconds. Oh, that's good. Yeah, I didn't. I don't think I had that. I didn't have that. I don't think I finished it.

Were you supposed to? I mean, of course you were, but like I thought most people couldn't. Oh, it's so stressful. I want to take it again tomorrow. I don't ever want to take it again. I did good. Now I don't want to touch it again.

That's how we're very different in that way. Yeah. I want to keep taking it until I am a hundredth in every. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a good sense of like, sometimes you get lucky. Don't mess with it. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Back to the Aaron trip. Yeah. Because I haven't given any review. Aaron and I, first of all, we slept at Gordon Keith's house.

So fun. Which was so fun. Friend of the pod. Go back and listen in our archive. Listen, go in the archives. Also just sniff around the archives, revisit stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Even if it's for two minutes. But we had a really fun dinner out with Gordon. He was such a good host. He picked us up at the bus and all. It was wonderful. We watched that first night we started Kristen's show. Nobody wants this. First episode, good, like it.

Second episode, that kiss hits? At the end of the episode, yeah. Oh my God. We were both like, oh my God, that's the best kiss scene I've ever seen in a show. I put it at number one. Erin goes, has she ever kissed you like that? And I go, oh no, not at all. And Erin's like, I don't know who I want to be in this scenario, him or her. Everyone, everyone. We...

You would have thought we watched the battle scene from like a gladiator or something. We, it was like an action set piece. It's a great scene. But that's also how we're different.

Okay. It's such a good scene and they have incredible chemistry. It was shot perfectly. Yeah. Everything was done perfectly. And the fact that they come back to it for a second hit at the end. See, I don't even, I don't remember that. Like they're going to have their one big kiss. Yeah. Then they had it. Ooh, that was something. Then they chat for a minute and they're like, okay, this is, let's do one more. And they fucking do it again. Can't help themselves. Yeah. And Aaron and I were both like, we're going to watch this kiss over and over again. We sprayed all day. Were you like,

Fuck. I'm so glad I'm married to her. No, I'm. I would have felt like that. I'm. Well, I'm like proud of her. Yes. She killed it. I'm like her flirt game in the first episode was so. Well, that's.

What I was about to say. Okay. So for me, like the kiss is great. The thing that was making my eyes like pop out of my head was the combo of in the first episode, the dinner. Yes. Well, basically since she walks into that party to when she gets in her car.

Yes. There's like so much flirtation from both of them. And it's done so confidently. From both. They're both like so confident and it's so playful and there's so much banter. And that for me is that. Titillating. Titillating part. Yeah. More than the kiss for me. Yeah. So I was really proud of her. Yeah. Like she really nailed that whole thing. So I was so proud of her. I was, um.

I was so impressed with how Brody handled that whole thing. Like the way he put it on her with the hand, the whole thing. I got it now with the hand. Yeah, you guys, if you want to go back and listen to our episode with Kristen and Adam, we, you know, we talk a lot about this show. Even if it's only for a couple minutes, just listen. If you want to just listen for two minutes.

And in fact, actually, what you should do is go back in the archives and listen to all the episodes you've done with Kristen. And we've done one with Adam as well. So yes, if you want to listen to two minutes of all of those, we would appreciate it. Yeah, we would love that. Yeah. Get into our catalog, even if it's just for two minutes at a time.

Anyway. Yeah, we had lots of fun. That's so good. Yeah. How was your trip to home? Oh, yeah. Now it's my turn to act like I have no clue. I went home for a couple days. It was nice. I saw some old friends, which was really nice. I went to my brother's new apartment, which was lovely. How's that? Really nice. Okay. Really nice. And in a really cute area by the...

Brave Stadium. The area right around it's called The Battery and it has like all these restaurants and it's really cute. So we walked to dinner and it was lovely. And I don't think I was my best self. Okay. Okay.

Which felt sad. It felt like a slip up because my parents came in the summer and it was, and my brother came and it was such a great trip. Yes. It really was very good and important for me and like, great. It was great. Yeah. I just sort of like,

Reverted. Well, you're in your childhood bedroom. I'm not. Oh. I mean, I'm in the childhood house, but different bedroom because my brother took my bedroom, obviously. Right. I also had a bug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As we established. I got confirmation before I left. I was hanging out with this person. They were tired. And I was like, oh, I hope you don't have my bug. Yeah.

And I was like, did you shit your pants? As a joke. And they said yes. They had. Yeah. Yeah. Did you shit your pants bug? It was. Yeah, yeah. It was. So then I was like, oh, my God, this bug is real. Yeah. Rampant. And it just lingered that fucking thing. I think it's over. I think I'm over it now for real. Thank you. Yeah.

So, anywho, I had that little bug still there. So, I didn't... It was eating up all the energy, mental energy I had that normally goes to me being, like, nice. Your best self. My best self. And so, it ate all my best self parts. And so, all that was left was my not-so-great self. Yeah. Now, do you think when you leave, your parents are hurt? Or are they just like, oh, who cares? I don't like thinking about it. Okay. Let's not think about it. Because I'm sure...

I'm sure they don't feel awesome. And also, I think they'd rather me be there...

That is your cranky self. Yeah, which is also sad. Yeah, they'll take what they can get. These parents. You know, parents, I know. It's such a thankless job. I feel so bad for all of you. Well, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, remember what Delta said the other day? Yeah, she's going to name her child after you. That was so cute. We're driving down the road and she just announced, I'm going to name my daughter Monica. So cute. You know what she's going to name her son?

Yeah. That came after. So you were first. Yeah.

Oh, no. And if she has a boy. Okay. Yeah. Oh, my God. She is so cute. We'll have to retire at that point because it'll be too problematic for the children. But you know what could be so cute? They could take on the business. Take it over. And then it'd still be Jackson Monica. Oh, that sounds good. Yeah. I like that. That's probably like 45 years away, though. Yeah, that's a while. Okay, let's do a couple facts. Okay.

This is for Keegan. Keegan. What fun. Yes. Oh, my God. Also, encyclopedic knowledge of comedy. Yes. Intimidatingly so. We were like, we could have had him on on a Thursday as an expert in comedy. Really, truly. And we probably should have. Okay. So speaking of Kristen, he mentioned, because obviously they went to the same high school, he mentioned the Goliards thing.

And he was like, I don't know if she was in that. Also, Goliard is a group of generally young clergy in Europe who wrote satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries of the Middle Ages. Okay. So I texted Kristen this morning. I said...

For Keegan's fact check, he asked if you were in Goliard. I guess it was something at your high school. And she said, yes, I dominated Goliard. Oh, great. Yes. She was dominant. Yeah, she was dominant. And she said it was our singing group in high school that got to skip school and go perform at the Elks Lodge and stuff. Oh, sure. Where I was trying to sell hugs, not drugs advertisements. You guys could have crossed paths there. Yeah, probably.

Weird. I doubt she went to the South Lion Elks Lodge, though. Well, there's only so many, and they have to get out of school a lot. That's true. So maybe. Okay, Spaghetti Junction. I got a little nervous that I was wrong about Spaghetti Junction, but I think I'm right. Spaghetti Junction is a name given to the intersection of Interstates 85 and 285. It's like where everything's crossing, and it's a big...

junky mess it's a big spaghetti speaking of oh it took us an hour and 50 minutes to get from the airport to my parents house oh my gosh and i think that's part of what happened and i got a little off kilter from that uh-huh that's like the time i landed in austin and sat in line for the rental car for longer than my flight to texas was yeah that was right it's hard to rebound from that

It is. It really is. Yeah. It sets a tone. Traffic. Traffic was just so fucking nightmarish. It's so bad in Atlanta. It's so bad, which leads me to my next fact. Oh, great. Which is what are the 10 cities with the worst traffic in the world? In the world? Yeah. Oh, wow. This is from U.S. News. Top five got to be in China, no? Well, let's see. Okay. Palermo is number 10.

Miami is number nine. Oh. Philadelphia, number eight. Okay. Toronto, number seven. The thing is, a lot of these places have public transport, which makes it easier. Yeah. Six is Bogota, Colombia. That sounds right. Five, New York City. Mm-hmm. Four, Boston. Two.

Infamously bad traffic. The Big Dig. Oh, my gosh. Supposed to get rid of that. Three, Paris. Never driven in Paris. I can't say that I've driven in Paris. Two, Chicago. There we go. Wow. Oh, Wabi. Traffic's so bad. There's construction always everywhere. Wow.

Wow. That's how Detroit is. I think it's because of the freezing and thawing. It's so hard on the roads. It just cracks them to shit. No one's going to like what I'm about to say, but I don't trust this list. Okay. Oh, wow. I know. Now it's turnt. Now it's turnt because number one's London, and that means LA is not on it. And there's no...

way. Well, there's no way. So on the U.S. list, L.A. is six U.S. traffic list. I can't believe there's nothing in Asia. I did this. Did this report include Asia? Doesn't say maybe it's phobic. Maybe it's my own xenophobia. I've seen some Shanghai traffic jams that

seem like oh you'd have to get out of your car what about india fucking india are you kidding me i mean how many yeah over a billion yeah 1.3 maybe okay same source u.s news uh for u.s is saying chicago number one boston new york city philadelphia

Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, Houston, Atlanta. There's no way Atlanta and Houston are tied for delay hours. But it's 2022. Could have gotten worse. Maybe. I just. Maybe there was a big issue. Or just movies are moving there. Is there a president in town or something?

Could have been a marathon. No, it's always like, it's a nightmare. Yeah. I just think in my head, it's LA number one, Atlanta number two. Anywhere you go. No.

New York number three. Austin number five. No, Austin's pretty good. Oh, it can be rough. It can be, but not like this. That's what I'm saying. This is such an extreme. Yeah. And also in LA, it's the amount of miles you're going. Which is very small. Exactly. You're in the car for an hour. You're never going more than eight miles. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy. Yeah. When you map, when you, I always, good job on MapQuest. Like maybe because they were first one. I still say I'm going to. You still say that? I do. I still say I'm going to MapQuest something, which is so interesting. Wow. Yeah, I never say I'm going to Yahoo something or any of these other. Right. But yeah, I always say I'm going to map. So when I MapQuest any location in LA, it's always like seven miles, 56 minutes. Exactly. And you're like, this is nuts. At some point I could walk.

Seven miles in an hour. I know. I kept up my pace. That's the motorcycle. It's a savior. Yeah. That's nice for you. Okay. Is Spanish longer than English? Spanish text, so, you know, that would translate, is about 20 to 30% longer than English. Okay. The Milford Panther. Oh. I can't believe you outed your friend. Well, I didn't say any names. Okay.

Where are Panthers indigenous? Panthers are native to Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and Florida. Florida Panther. We talked about it. Now heavily mixed with the Texas Panther. That's right. We did talk about that on another episode. Listen to all our old episodes. Yeah, go back. Even if it's just for a couple minutes, just start them up.

And then switch to another one. Okay. Where did Brian Tyree Henry go to college? Because I said, oh, didn't he go to Juilliard? He went to Yale. To Yale. Lupita.

Who's a previous episode. Yes. If you want to go back. Yes. Enjoy Bryant. Is she Princeton or Yale? I think she's Yale. Yeah. Is she? Yeah. I thought she was Stanford. No, she was either Yale or Princeton, but I think Yale. Yale? And then also Paul Giamatti, Yale. Go back in the archives. No, he's Harvard. No.

He went to Yale Drama. Oh, yeah, he did. He did. He did with Edward Norton Jr. I almost said it. Oh, she went to Yale Joy. Okay, so if you want to listen to all our Yale guests, you can go back in the archives. Paul Giamatti. Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Joy Bryant. Brian Tyree Henry. We haven't had him yet. Yeah. But we want to. Yeah. Not to mention our experts. Anderson Cooper. Claire Danes. Cooper. Anderson Cooper. Oh, right. Oh, Claire Danes.

C. Danes. That's in the archives. That is deep. You got to go back deep in that. Yeah. Let's listen to a couple minutes of it. Too close. Listen to like approximately two to three minutes. Anyway, that's all. Keegan was awesome. He's so delightful. So much energy. Yes. So fast thinking. Such an interesting story. Yeah.

I adore him. Me too. Perfect podcast guest. Yeah. Yeah. He's an easy one. Yeah. Like a Bobby Lee. Yeah. True. That's a great episode. Check it out. A couple minutes. In the archives if you just want to like just two minutes. All right. Love you.

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